The Obvious Things Are Always the Hardest to Find

My family and I would go hiking or adventuring a lot. As we would be tromping through the woods, my mom would always see hearts in nature. Heart shaped rocks, shadows, branches you name it.
It got a little annoying after awhile because I never would see them. She would point them out and I would usually pretend I could see a heart in that crumpled leaf, but only like half the time did I actually see anything.
She likened to seeing God's heart for us in the natural world around us.
Which made not seeing them even more depressing.
When I went to Scotland, I told my buddies about this and then they started seeing hearts everywhere. I still wouldn't see them!
It was annoying.
Sometimes in our spiritual walk we have times of feeling far from God.
It seems harder to see Him.
I know He hasn't gone anywhere, it just doesn't seem as easy to locate Him at times as others.
I have been coming out of one of those phases and listening obsessively to Gogol Bordello and Alexi Murdoch.
There is an Alexi Murdoch song that I think sums up how our walk with God goes sometimes:

Well I have been searching
All of my days 
Many a road, you know 
I've been walking on 
All of my days 
And I've been trying to find 
What's been in my mind 
As the days keep turning into night 

Well I have been quietly standing in the shade 
All of my days 
Watch the sky breaking on the promise that we made 
All of this rain 
And I've been trying to find 
What's been in my mind 
As the days keep turning into night 

Well many a night I found myself with no friends standing near 
All of my days 
I cried aloud 
I shook my hands 
What am I doing here 
All of these days 
For I look around me 
And my eyes confound me 
And it's just too bright 
As the days keep turning into night 

Now I see clearly 
It's you I'm looking for 
All of my days 
So I'll smile 
I know I'll feel this loneliness no more 
All of my days 
For I look around me 
And it seems you found me 
And it's coming into sight 
As the days keep turning into night 
As the days keep turning into night 
And even breathing feels all right 
Yes, even breathing feels all right 
Now even breathing feels all right 
Yes even breathing 
Feels all right

The last part I love, "for I look around me, and it seems You found me"
I am starting to see hearts :)

I'm Glad Real Life is Not like a Choose Your Own Adventure Book, Because I Always Died Right Away

Man, as a kid I loved the Choose Your Own Adventure books. I had about 20 different ones about all kinds of things from cavemen to aliens. The problem however was that I would treat each decision as a real life situation and would decide based on what I would actually do if I was really in that situation. This always proved to end badly and with me dying some horrible unsuccessful death.
I recently found a Choose Your Own Adventure at a thrift store and was excited to try my luck as an adult:
 The problem is, I had the same hangup as an adult, and made my choices based on what real life me would do. After a few decisions I found myself shrunk and in the clutches of an ant colony. Not knowing if they are evil or not I am asked if I want to fight or go with them to see the ant hill. My reasoning was that I didn't know if they meant me harm or not and not being a fan of violence, I choose to go with the ants.
This choice ended with me being eaten by the ants.
When I was growing up, the general theme in the Non-Denominational church was that our spiritual life was kind of like a choose your adventure book. You were taught that this ultimate purpose or "destiny" existed beyond you, and if you made the right choices along in life then you could achieve this destiny.
The problem in this thinking is that it puts the idea of control into our hands, rather then where it should, in God's hands.
It's also a very stressful way to live, always thinking you will miss your destiny, or get captured by ants. (maybe that last part is just related to the book)
Thinking that one wrong call could screw up all God's plans for you and your life. Even though as a kid if I made a choice that led to instant death, then I would pretend I didn't choose that and go back choose the other option....which would also on occasion led to instant death.
(This is also is just about the book)

Luckily though life doesn't work like this. I believe God has a master plan for our life, and that our choices do affect it in a way, but not as dramatically as I previously thought.
This is mostly because I had been giving myself too much credit when in all reality God directs our path and if our heart is in the right place, have very little to do with it.
When I was younger I had what I called "alternative life plans". These were in case my main life plan fell through, or I changed my mind.
I am currently in life plan # 6.
Like I have said before, I never planned on being an art teacher, I never even liked art very much. I made some choices in life that didn't bring me any closer to this career, but since God knows me better then I know myself, those choices in a long way around type of way brought me on the path I am currently trotting.

And I FREAKIN" love it. Teaching art is one the most fun things I have ever done. I have discovered photography through this and love it too, and it has become my favorite thing.
Thank the Lord He was guiding my steps, and my own choices didn't affect as much as I thought and I didn't in real life end up as a meal for mutants ants.

I really do love my jobs. I teach art at an alternative school and its K-12 and I am an art tutor at an after-school program for grades 5-8.
I have a 5th grader in after-school who was always standing way too close to me. So one day inspired by Natalie Dee:
  I told him he was too close, and was invaded my personal space bubble.
Now instead of standing too close, he stands at arms distance and air pokes me saying "pop". Left uncorrected he can go on for hours. Hours. So now when I see him coming, I tell him "NO".
So he drew this picture for me:

This is me saying no and my bubble of personal space being popped.

Another after-school student asked me once if he could draw his "artistic interpretation of me as an octopus".
I said sure.
This was the result:

Why I also have a pilgrims hat and a mustache I'll never know......
........But it's awesome :D

Shallow is Only Only Fun When It's a Puddle You Can Splash In

Shallow people are not much fun.
I don't much enjoy being judged for how I look.
Well.. sometimes I do I guess if the person arrives at a positive conclusion.
Most of the time I just think its funny the assumptions or reactions people can have to me solely based on what I look like.
When I was in college, I was in this art class with several sorority girls. We were not friends. They didn't talk to me at all, which was fine because I was sitting with the funniest people in the class. For the last several years I have had the same general hair style:

This is me with a Princess Castle tent on my 21st birthday

The semester of that class I decided to get a hair, and I got bangs. My hair/hair style was exactly the same, except I had bangs:

This is me in Scotland, with bangs. Pretty much the same thing right?

So I walk into class with my new "style" and all of a sudden all the sorority girls want to talk to me. They compliment my hair, and ask where I got it done blah blah blah. A couple of them went home that day and friended me on Facebook. 

All of sudden I was more interesting to them, since I had a "stylish" hair cut. (BTW I have let it grow back out now bangs are not for me)

When I was in Scotland, my friend and I stumbled upon a themed bar, the theme being punk rock. Now first off why there are themed bars I'll never know, but everyone in there was dressed punk rock, tattoos, Mohawks, combat boots. Everyone was super cool and punk even the customers. So I decided it would be fun to mix it up and go in dress opposite of everyone. My friends in Scotland are amazing, and one of my roommates was always doing embarrassing things with me because we are cool like that:

We accidentally had matching hats

She agreed to me experiment. So one night I dressed up in full hippy gear, hand made skirt, peace signs, braids, vest, it was very believable. My friend choose to go the prepster look, and even tied a sweater around her neck. It was awesome, we looked very un-punk. We walk in, and everyone turns and looks at us. Ok. That was expected. What was not expected was the sudden change of atmosphere, people getting up and leaving and the server refusing to make eye contact. We ordered food and beers, and the waitress brought it over and just pushed it towards us, and wouldn't look at us or talk. The only person who talked to us was this drunk old rock star that has apparently toured with Areosmith.

Overall what started as a social experiment and joke turned out to be one of my more awkward moments. (which is quite amazing since I have racked up a lot of awkward moments) I was honestly shocked at how almost hostile people were towards us because we weren't dresses as them. 

I wanted to get pictures of us in these but I was so uncomfortable that we hurriedly finished what we ordered and split. I have since and prior to this done many little things messing with people and the reactions to someones appearance, such as playing in rivers wearing dresses, going to Walmart in 80's prom dresses from thrift stores, trick or treating the after Halloween and so on. 

The thing is, people are used a "norm" and when someone does something silly like string them from a tree or draw chalk dinosaurs on public sidewalks or stand on campus with a "free hug" sign people get weirded out. When people are weired out by something out of the ordinary like this, they react one of three ways:

1. Ignore

2. Get offended

3. Join in

When I was a college student, I would in between classes sometimes bring Playdough and coloring books and plop down in the University Center and play. Random people would join in and it was awesome. 

Being different gets peoples attention. As children of God we are set apart and have no choice but to be different, so we might as well go with it :)

Listening to the Radio is Like Eating Someone's Left Over Half Sandwich

I really dislike the radio. On the rare occasion I do turn it on I have high expectations that something awesome will fall onto my ears. I spend minutes searching for a decent song, only to stumble upon the last 30 seconds of something I like. After this disappointingly short taste of good music, I have the crazy assumption that the next song will be good too.
No. This is where I am always disappointed. After rocking out to the last 30 seconds of something great like Free Bird, the radio shoots me with something gross like Elton John or Rush. This starts another cycle of searching stations for something not disgusting and always ends with me feeling let down.
It's like walking into a restaurant and instead of choosing what you want to eat, they hand you somebodies half eaten sandwich.
Satellite radio is only a slightly better option then normal radio. Satellite radio for me is the same in the disappointment category, except there are more channels to go through first. Also the stations are named and that just makes it worse. There is one station on Sirus that I like, station 28. Marky Ramone has a show on this channel, and when he is hosting, the music is great. Classic punk. When the other DJ guys host however, the level of awesome goes down because they play lousy music. Just because someone plays fast and sings non-understandable lyrics doesn't make them a punk band.
I recently was part of a very sexist conversation on satellite radio and women. There was also something about prostitutes and talk radio making people into killers. I did not agree with things said in aforementioned discussion.

I noticed this weekend how music can affect my driving. While listening to channel 28 while they were playing good music, I noticed I tended to drive very fast.
Punk music= fast
Then they played Sum 41 and I wanted to puke so I switched to nice folk music. This found me pondering things like waterfalls, front porches, horses, hot tea and trees. It also found me driving 10 below the speed limit.
The last style of music I attemped on this recent road trip was ska.
This made me drive all over the place and take unnecessary risks. Also I couldn't seem to drive in a straight line while listening to ska.


It was a fun weekend, though as always, filled with many awkward moments. I apparently have a staring problem. Sometimes people remind me of things, and I make these outlandish associations in mind. Usually I start laughing at the joke I am making in my head, but more often I just accidentally end up staring at someone while thinking all these things. Its only awkward when they realize I have been staring and that brief moment of hesitant eye contact is made.
I did that like 3 times this weekend.
Also going to peoples house who make you take off your shoes and that day you decided to where mis- matching socks and one happens to be inside out because the inside of patterned socks are itchy.

Also I think I saw a robot jogging. I noticed him jogging and noted his nicely groomed dread locks. TWO HOURS later I passed him again, and he was still jogging. Not even sweaty.
My only conclusion is that he is a robot. Why else would he still be running after TWO HOURS?!
See I am what I call a casual exerciser. I like walking, and do so fairly often. I don't though like working out, its too much. I am not serious, just casual. If I get some exercise in my daily routine awesome, but I don't go out of my way to find it and I certainly wouldn't run for over two hours.
So naturally I concluded he must be a well groomed robot with nice dreads.

On a Scale from Going to the Dentist to Having a Volcano Erupt in Your House, Facebook Currently Ranks at Falling Face First Into Quick Sand in the Middle of Summer

I really am annoyed at frickin Facebook. They made me change to the new profile without my consent. LAME.
My profile now reads "Studied BS education at WCU"............................

Um, no. I have a BS in education. Huge difference there Facebook.
Well actually, thats kind of true too.

So this new profile sums up my existence with my job, education, relationship status and home. This offends me. These things are apart of me, not what defines me.
Its social studies class all over again.
When I was still an elementary education major, I had to take this class on teaching social studies to elementary students. Our first assignment was to right an "identity" essay stating what our gender, social class and race are and why they define us and everyone we know. I disagreed with this and instead wrote about how these things are apart of who we are, but don't define me. I respond to other people not by their race or social class, but who they are inside making the point that someone who is a cheerleader would be harder for me to relate to then someone who is a different race or religion. I argued that how can we judge people on factors such as these when so many others things make people who they are? (I might have stated somewhere that I was racist against cheerleaders)
He hated my paper. He told me I was racist and lying about it, and I was really shallow and did care about social classes and was just lying about it because I wasn't insightful. He made me re-write this essay four times because I wouldn't back off of what I believed. This made an awkward semester.
One day in class he told a joke:
"Whats the difference between Kansas and yogurt? Yogurt has culture."
He then was like "Oh sorry. That had nothing to do with you. It was just the state in the joke."
RIGHT.

So now Facebook is has reduced my me-ness down to silly facts. I'm sure most people are familiar with the "nature vs nurture" argument. I think its a little of both. So many things factor into who we are and what we do. My jobs and education and junk like that are things that make up me, but if they disappeared, I would still exist.


I just hope Facebook doesn't tell a bad joke about me too.

I Like the Flavor Blue Best

When I was a kid, I was convinced of strange things. For many years, I was convinced that Superman ice cream was flavored by the colors, and that each color was a different flavor. Blue was my favorite, and I would always try to eat all the blue out first because it was tastier then the other colors. Sometimes kids would try to tell me it was all one flavor, but I wouldn't believe them. At some point some unimaginative sucky adult at an ice cream place told me that Superman ice cream was just vanilla ice cream with food dye in it. I was terribly and understandably distraught.
As a kid I also thought movies changed every time you watched them. (this is probably related to my slight tendency towards ADD and not paying attention) I was convinced absolutely, that movies changed just a little each time I watched them. I took this pretty seriously and would point out things that didn't happen the last time I watched a particular movie. I also would watch movies that scared or stressed me out because I thought they would be different this time and not scare me. This was always disappointing and would lead to having to watch that scary movie again, creating a vicious cycle.
I thought that the actors would have to re-act the whole thing every time I watched their movie, and would forget their lines or add new things each time they re-did the story.
As kids we are convinced of strange things.  Everyday kids in my class surprise me with weird things that they think. It makes me sad when adults start to correct kids, I remember how sad I was and confused with the Superman ice cream trauma. I suppose adults tell kids these things for their own good, but would I make any less of an awesome adult if I thought the blue in Superman ice cream was the best flavor? I think not.

I do think knowledge is important and I don't want to go through life ignorant, but I do struggle to find that child like faith, that accepts completely and without question truth.

I woke up thinking about the Lord and the Bible verse, "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not see" Hebrews 11:1
Faith is a substance, a tangible thing. As a kid my faith in these things that aren't even true was so strong they became true for me. Think about how much more powerful faith in the Lord and His promises are when we go at it with a child like heart. Faith is strange and I don't pretend to fully understand it. Maybe just for me  God did let each flavor taste different. 
To the outside world, maybe our faith appears as foolish as my belief in Superman ice cream, but isn't that the point of Superman ice cream? To taste each color? I think so. 
As we get older our faith may get questioned or judged, but unlike movies being different every time we watch them we are believing in something real no punk-ass jerk face ice cream server can tell us otherwise. 


I am listening to my favorite Five Iron Frenzy song and I think Reese Roper as always speaks words of wisdom that apply to my thoughts this morning:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BFIMOJ46ofk

I Always Imagine Black Ice as An Invisable Monster That Will Jump Out and Eat Me

When ever people say watch for black ice I always imagine it like a video game. Like in the picture above, I'll just be driving along and then WHAM! BLACK ICE MONSTER comes out of the ground and eats me. Or maybe sometimes its more like black ice is an invisible projection pad, that is set off by driving over it. When you drive over this type of black ice it acts like a launching pad and suddenly projects your car into the air like a giant  spring.

I guess its a good thing its not in fact this way.


I had some fun conversations with my students last week:

student- Coffee stunts your growth.
me- No, I drink coffee all the time and look how tall I am.
student- Yeah but you're super old.

student- Spidey senses are better then flying. What if you are getting punched? How would you sense it coming?
me- I would see it coming and fly above it.
student- What about heat seeking missiles?
me- I wouldn't make enemies with people who had heat seeking missiles.

student- Ms Kansas we are creating our perfect neighborhood, and you have a house there.
me- Oh yeah?
student- Yes your house is right by Bret Farve's and in the Zaxbys parking lot.





Thats all I have to say today.

Hidden Talents (or lack thereof) Are Annoying

Ever since I was little, I was convinced that I had a hidden talent. I imagined going along in life and suddenly finding an amazing skill that I didn't know I had.
This was an unfortunate world view.
When I was 8, I had to take piano lessons. When I started playing and discovered I didn't know how and had to actually learn, I quit.
Hidden talent not piano.
This went on for longer then I would like to admit, often with me quitting after discovering no inner genius for a given skill.
As I got older I figured maybe my hidden talent was just.. er.... more hidden then most people so the best way to find it was through process of elimination. Thus, by figuring out what it wasn't, I could find what it was.
Through this process I discovered my hidden talent is not one of the following:
1. sports (this was never a serious consideration)
2. singing
3. playing banjo
4. yo-yos
5. kite flying
6. dancing (especially contra. the last time I went contra dancing I stepped on 3 peoples feet and punched someone in the face)
7. pottery
8. skateboarding
9. archery *
* When I worked at a camp one summer, we started out by the staff going to each camp activity and trying it, since we might end up teaching it. When we got to archery I was totally excited, I had never tried it and perhaps this would prove to be my hidden talent.
It wasn't.
I couldn't hit the target. The whole time we were there I missed every single shot. In front of all the staff. The last week of the summer the archery instructor quit, and since I didn't have class that week guess who had to teach archery? Yep. Everybody knew I was lousy at this, so when the first class started, they told the kids I was the best archer on camp but couldn't shoot because I would scare them with my talent, that I was so good they shouldn't even ask to see me try. So I taught the class all week without mishap, the kids did great and it turned out to be pretty fun. The last day one of my favorite students asked me if I would demonstrate my skills, since it was the last day. I tried to get out of it but couldn't so I told them I would if we turned it into a "lesson". So I pretended to pretend to not know how to shoot, and let them guide me through the steps. When I was set up and ready to fire, I said a quick prayer and hoped to God I would at least hit the dang target. When I opened my eyes, the arrow was dead center.
(I got cocky and tried again later and missed)

This world view is also unfortunate and rather depressing.
So now I have a slightly different approach, and apart from a bit of swearing I think Natalie Dee words it nicely:



Maybe I don't have a hidden talent, but now at least I can have fun learning and trying.
And I never liked dancing or pianos anyway, which would suck if you had a hidden talent for something you hated.

I Don't Believe in New Years Resolutions

It's true I don't really believe in News Year resolutions. Maybe they work for you, but not for me. The idea that I can make a decision to be different, just doesn't usually fly. First off we can only change so much, true change comes from God and usually we are the last ones to notice it.

I think the problem is (for me at least, I understand that some people actually have will power and make great accomplishments with their new years resolutions) trying to approach life all at once, trying to make changes overnight. I think what the Lord is showing me about this year, is that He has the big picture under control, that we just need to figure out how to live today.

David (from the Bible) is known as 'a man after God's own heart" yet he in some ways was quite a hooligan. He stole two women from their husbands, (yes two!) killed one of their husbands, wished people dead and had an affair. Also he at one point danced naked in the streets. He did great things too though, and through it all loved God above all else, even when his behavior didn't necessarily reflect this. The cool thing about this is the overall picture of his life, and accomplishments are overshadowed by His relationship with God. The end picture, the whole story doesn't matter as much, what it really comes down to is our daily relationship with God.

I have recently had some free time and Netflicks and therefor I have been watching a few movies. The last 3 movies I watched though, all seemed to have a common theme.
The first movie I watched (with the common theme) was called Being Human which I only watched because I thought Ewan Mcgregor was in it (he only had one line) but it starred Robin Williams. (I need a disclaimer right now, normally life my does not include this many movies, but every blog so far I have mentioned a movie which is weird and I don't know why I'm in such a movie phase) The movie is about humanity, and their struggle in life. Robin Williams plays a man named Hector, who starts the movie as a caveman, and then goes through different times in history till modern times. Through out the whole thing, he is trying to find happiness. At the end of the movie he asks: "Will things ever get better?" to which his daughter responds: "This is it. This is the best day of your life."
The next movie I watched was an independent film starring Zach Galifianakis called Visioneers. It was a strange movie about people exploding. Nobody knows why people are exploding, they think maybe something is wrong, but as it turns out, something is wrong with everybody else, they stopped feeling. The people explode when they start to feel again. The climax of the movie is the line: "the key to happiness is being happy."
The Last movie I watched was a Coen Brothers film, A Serious Man. The movie starts off with a quote:
"Receive with simplicity everything that happens to you"
This movie was great and I don't want to give it away, but it basically is about living your life and having faith for the end, but enjoying the day to day middle.
I don't have anything for this coming year, just that my focus should be on today. Sometimes I forget how to be a Christian, and I look back at days without prayer or reading my Bible and feel lame. I think that I have to do something big to fix it. God's grace is big enough and all I have to do is fix today.