Loving Your Neighbor As Yourself

I don't remember who I need to credit with my learning the actual meaning of the Golden Rule, besides Jesus. It sort of came to me slowly, like a warm light in the middle of a dark wood.

Throughout my teenage years, I had this notecard with turquoise block letters taped to my mirror that says: JOY. It was an acronym that was to remind me: Jesus first, Others second, Yourself last.

 I tried to live by this rule. I tried to pray, read the Bible, and put Jesus absolutely FIRST (I failed a lot). I tried to put others second, always. This I was pretty good at. Because it was easy for me to put myself LAST. And it felt so darned Christian of me.

 I remember intentionally taking the smallest piece for myself. Intentionally choosing clothing at the store with a little damage (yeah, I did that - because I was not worthy to have the good clothing, I should leave those for other people - Yourself LAST), allowing people to cut in front of me in line without saying anything, allowing people to walk all over me, doing whatever everyone else wanted, going with the flow... The list goes on. Because it's easy to cave. And easy to berate yourself. And because you see all of your flaws so well, it is extremely easy to remind yourself of all the reasons you aren't worthy to be breathing, let alone have something good in your life.

 I felt that these actions were good and right and Holy. That somehow being this way made me a GOOD person. I was loving my neighbor. I was treating others the way I would like to be treated. And when I screwed up royally in many other ways, this was the thing I could come back to - at least I am always LAST.

 I practiced this diligently all the way through college.

 I sank into a deep depression and ended up in counseling. I never told my psychiatrist about my promise to Jesus and to myself. She never asked. We mostly talked about boys and my longing to throw myself off of a bridge late at night - not necessarily so I would be dead, but so that I could see what would really happen when my body hit the water.

 And so things continued like that. Until I started to make a turn. I read the scriptures again; especially the Jesus scriptures. And I came to the Golden Rule:

 Mark 12:30-31 New International Version (NIV): 

30 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’[a] 31 The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’[b] There is no commandment greater than these.” 

I remember thinking that it didn't sound quite right.  I remembered: "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."  And this does, in fact, appear in the scriptures and is, in fact, credited as the Golden Rule, but there is this other version that talks about loving your neighbor as yourself, and it was intriguing, because loving my neighbor as myself seemed an awful lot like I was missing the boat.

Love your neighbor as yourself.  

What did that mean?

What if I wasn't loving myself at all?

What if I treated myself like absolute and total undeserving crap?

Love your neighbor as yourself.

Love your neighbor like you love yourself.

And treat other people the way you want to be treated.

These things go together.

If I want to love my neighbor, Jesus also wants me to love me.

He loves me too.

I am valuable just like my neighbor.

I need to be able to love myself so that I can love my neighbor better.  And in order to do that I need to accept that Jesus thinks I'm a precious creation.

So in this pondering, I realized that Jesus loves me.  Just like I am.  No strings attached.

And that gives me value.  That makes me precious.  In the book Captivating by John and Stasi Elderedge we can come to understand that God sees as as princesses of his realm.  He is King, after all.  And the Bible tells us that we are his children.

So...  royalty.

Really the highest freaking royalty that there is.

And sometimes, being the princess and all, I deserve the nice piece of toast or the big pancake or the cookie with the most chocolate chips.  Unless my kid really wants that cookie - because taking it would make me a royal prick.  But at a party with my friends and there's a big plate of cookies there and it's just me and the cookies and the table?  Yeah, it's okay for me to take that one with all those chips in it.

And not just that.

I need to take care of myself.

When I'm sick I need to rest and make myself soup and tea with honey and get myself blankets.  Because if my neighbor is sick I need to be able to encourage them to rest and bring them a tureen of soup and a mug of hot tea with honey.

It's a delicate balance, sure.  Sometimes treating others the way I want to be treated is sacrificial, especially in the moment.  But it's okay to recover from that.  To put up my feet and close my eyes and breathe life in for a few moments in silence.  It's okay to work on striking a balance between cooking awesome meals for other people's parties and having great dinner for my own family.

Yesterday a friend of mine posted on facebook that if I love my neighbor as myself and I'm really self-critical, then that must mean I should treat other people in that same way.

And that post brought all of the above to mind.

Because that's not what it means.

Jesus calls us to love Him, and through that love exchange we can learn our own high value.  And once we understand our own value and are able to sometimes take the chocolatey-est cookie and give ourselves a sick day and groom ourselves and ask for a hug.  And once we understand we are valuable it allows us to see the high value in every. other. person. on the planet.  And when we see the value in the people all around us we are more apt to give the homeless person with the sign that says "Looking for a hot meal" our whole Panera Gift Card.  Because it was freely given to me, and I can freely give it away.  And when we know our neighbor has had a death in the family, or brought home a new baby, we can bring over a big container of pasta with extra sauce and cheese (unless they're vegan... then hold the cheese) and be happy to do it!  Because it's something I know would be helpful to me.  It's something I would love.  And I have value.  And they have value.  And you have value too. 

On "Shopping Cart 'Ditchers'..."

A friend of mine recently posted this blog by Matt Walsh. I usually really enjoy his stuff. He makes me laugh, he makes me cry, he is an excellent writer and one that I generally agree with while he is able to put into words things I have not always been able to. Today, however, I had to write a response because I want people to understand where he gets it wrong.

A few months ago, I would have read his blog like the majority of his readers, laughed, felt a little bad for Matt, agreed with him, and then posted some comment about how people who don't put their shopping carts back are lazy jerks.  Or I would have re-posted with a snicker.

That was before my experience in the Kroger parking lot near Danville, KY.

The fam and I were bringing our groceries back to the car and loading them into the back.  An elderly woman had just pulled in to a spot near us (we were about thirty feet from a cart corral), on the store side.  At about the same time, another elderly woman was unloading her groceries into the car across from Elderly Woman #1.

 EW#1:  Can I use your cart?

EW#2:  If you can wait 'til I'm finished.  I need it to hold on to so I can keep myself up.  She chuckles a little at her own situation.

EW#1:  Chuckles back, knowingly.  That's why I asked to use your cart!  I need it too!

They both laugh.  EW#1 pulls a walker from the back seat while simultaneously holding on to the car door.  She walks over to a cart that someone left in the middle of the parking lot - just near the cart return, but closer to a handicapped space.  She grabs the card with one hand and put the walker inside.  Then, she pushes the cart back to her car, unloads the walker, and grips the cart tightly, holding herself steady.  She closes the car door.  EW#2 is still unloading her groceries, keeping one hand on the cart at all times.  It is a slow process, but a meaningful one: she is still able to do this independently.  

EW#1:  You have a good day now!

EW#2:  She waves at her new acquaintance.  You too!

EW#1 walks into the store with her cart.  EW#2 finishes unloading her groceries and closes the car's back door.  She pushes the cart up to the driver's seat and opens the door.  She looks around furtively.  It is obvious that she knows she should return the cart rather than leaving it here next to the parking space, but she also knows she can't get back to her car without it.  She looks at the cart, then back to the corral, then at the cart.  Finally, she leaves the cart where it is and gets into her car, closes the door, and drives away.

I watched all of this with a kind of awe.  I never thought about how difficult it must be for an elderly person or for a person with any sort of physical handicap to return a cart to the corral.

I know that there are likely people who just leave their carts in the middle of the parking lot out of laziness or foolishness or the fact that they are super late getting home...  There are also people who honestly can't put the cart away, but need it to get their groceries and to get inside the doors of the store.

In the future, perhaps instead of complaining about the ridiculousness of someone else's actions - someone whose situation we don't know and can't know - perhaps those of us who are able-bodied and have a little time could help out with the parking lot situation.

If you see a cart someone has left mid-parking lot (and honestly, there aren't usually very many), take a few extra seconds out of your day and return it to the corral for them.  They might be sick, in labor, elderly... they could have left that cart for any myriad of reasons.  In my travels I have found that for the most part, everyone is doing the very best they can with what they have at the time.  So try seeing the situation a different way, and maybe you could keep damage from happening to someone's car like what happened to Matt's.  Or maybe you'll just make someone's day.

For more on this topic, check out Rob Bell's NOOMA:Store.  (I'd post it here, but it's not free)

Celebrating Love.

I was privileged to attend the marriage celebration of a dear friend yesterday.

It was everything such an occasion should be.  The photos speak for themselves:

 There were many moments that were sheer perfection yesterday, but the moment that sticks out most for me is when Hanniel (the bride) tore her dress under the arm.  She wasn't devastated.  In fact, she smiled and said, "It's more than okay.  It's perfect." 

Oral Sex

I titled this "Oral Sex" because not only is that what this post is about, but I knew it would be eye-catching.  I also knew that when people typed it into Google hoping for some tips and tricks, they might just get this post instead, and gain a different sort of understanding.

I spent the past week at my parents' house, which gave me a rare opportunity to talk with my mom almost uninterrupted.

We talk via telephone often, but there are always chores or kids calling to me in the background, and my thoughts can get muddled.

We've become friends over these last several years, my mom and me.  It hasn't always been that way.  There was a lot of lost trust and argument and general dislike through the years... especially the teenage ones.  We have our differences now, but we've chosen the road of sorting them out over coffee, instead of estrangement, and I'm thankful.

This past week we got to talking about how things have changed since she was attending the public school system.

She told me about a movie that she watched on Lifetime that discussed oral sex in middle school, and how it is becoming so common - even at school.

I already knew this, unfortunately.

A school in our area ended up with separate lunch tables for boys and girls and banned recess because 11 - 13 year olds were using the time for, let's face it, blow-jobs.

For the girls, it didn't always feel like a choice.  Peer pressure was intense.  If you wanted a boyfriend, it was expected.  And when you're 12 or 13 and just slamming head-long into puberty, you desperately long for acceptance, especially by the opposite sex.  And the boys felt like - well - if he's getting it, then I deserve to have it too.  A dad even stood up at the parent meeting and announced that his son was just doing what he wished he could do at that age.

When I was in middle school I am certain this was happening, but it wasn't quite as common.  More common was groping in the hallway and during movies in the social studies classroom.

As a young girl I can't say that I enjoyed any of that, but I allowed it.

I didn't know what else to do.

I remember feeling incredible attraction to several different boys.  I remember wanting them to like me.  To choose me as their girlfriend.  To dance with me at the 8th Grade Dance.

I was a bit awkward, and so they didn't often choose me for for their girlfriend or their dance partner.  That would have been much too public an acceptance.  But they did grab my butt in the hallway.  They did touch my breasts in social studies class.  And so...  I thought... it seemed better than nothing.

At all ages, we women simply want to be thought beautiful, attractive, lovely. 

My daughter wears her dance costume covered in pink sequins and her pink hair bow and sparkly, strappy shoes and asks her daddy to dance with her.  Asks us to watch her put on a show.  Loves for us to delight in her beauty and personality.

We never really lose that.

It stays with us.  It just manifests in new ways.

We realize there is a great big world outside of our family and we'd like them to accept us too.  We want them to delight in us as we wished our parents would.  For some of us, our daddy's said yes to dancing.  Said yes to applauding our preschool shows.  For others, they turned away: ridiculed us, left our moms.  And for BOTH it is intensely difficult to navigate the pressures that lay before us when we hit middle school and are faced with boys who are riddled with hormones and educated by their peers and the pornographic media that is so readily available on the internet and all around us from the time we are born.

I don't blame the boys.  The media portrays sex as something they deserve in a dating relationship.  And it feels good... obviously.  Oral sex is "better" because it doesn't result in pregnancy.  It feels safer.  And it can be carried out under the lunch table or within a circle of your friends in the parking lot.

The thing is...  it's a really bad idea.  And without a serious committed relationship...  it's degrading.

First of all - oral sex can transmit the same diseases.  You can get them all, Ladies.  On the Lifetime program that my mom watched an STD infected so many girls there was a line stretching down the hallway outside the nurses office for treatment and testing.

But second, and really more importantly, this is about our dignity.

This is a huge loss for girls AND boys, and while boys shouldn't be asking for it, they're battling the urge to fit in, the screaming of their hormones AND the fact that YOU are allowing it.

If all the girls got together and said NO, then the boys would back down.

Sure, it would get ugly for a few days.  Maybe even a few weeks.  But girls need to stick together on things like this.  We are strong together.  You can take a stand at your school.

You're not a plaything or a cheap hooker.  You are a young woman of dignity.  You are beautiful and priceless and there will be a man someday who won't ask such things of you.  And those men will be much more common if you stand up for yourself today.  Should they get a clue about treating you like a princess?  HECK YES.  But as long as they aren't, it's up to us to tell them NO.  It's up to us to hold on to who we are and not give that away to a boy just because he asks, or pressures, or gets his friends to pressure.  Because after you give a guy a blow-job, you don't have a lot of other places to go, physically.  And he has already used you just to pleasure himself.  It's like masturbation with a doll.  You can't go places emotionally with a boy that you've already gone everywhere with physically.  If it happens, it's rare, and you've got to take a lot of steps backward to go forward.

Take it from a girl who's been there.  Who has felt the pressure and who has given in.  Who has been called "dirty" by someone she loved.  Who has tried everything to get a boy to stay - and they left anyway.  Guys respect you if you stand up to them.  If you use your smarts.  If you respect yourself.  It is okay, even today, even in our rape-driven, sex-on-the-first-date, Cosmo reading culture to look a boy (or man) in the eyes and say, "I'm not that kind of girl."  It doesn't matter how many times you've already given in.  You can change.  You can be bigger and better than you were.  You can be a leader and stand up for you and the other young women around around you.

You can walk away.

Pink.

A friend just posted this on facebook.

She cried.  Now I'm crying.

I wrote the poem about being a cocoon for my daughter this morning...

I guess the song speaks for itself:

Followers.

I just checked on the other blog I write, and noted that I had a new "follower".  It's kind of a weird term - but really, what would be better?  You do, in fact, follow a blog - follow the life of the person, or follow their thought train, or follow their photography or their artistic journey or their weight loss story or what have you.

The new follower sort of made my heart skip a little bit.

She is a friend from my teenage years - one with whom I grew apart, but one I never really stopped thinking about.

Stephanie and I were PK friends.  That's "preacher's kid" for those of you unfamiliar with the term.  It's an interesting life to lead, as my other PK friends will be quick to tell you.  A lot of life lived "in the fishbowl", so to speak, and so, though few and far between, my PK friends have always been especially dear to me.

Stephanie and I met at the District Christmas Party on my father's district and we were in the same grade at school and seemed to have quite a bit in common.  For awhile, we only saw each other at the Christmas party, once a year.  Then Stephanie invited me to come to baseball/softball camp with her and another friend (of hers) and I went.  I found the experience outstanding.  One of little self-consciousness and much self-confidence - which was especially important for middle school me, who felt awkward and strange in too big feet and enormous glasses.

For reasons I'm not sure I can explain, Stephanie and I grew apart.

Even upon attending the same college, we never really talked much after her dad moved to another district.

I mourned the loss.

At each Christmas party we would exchange M&Ms.

The tradition was born when we realized that every year the favors were the same: red and green M&Ms.  And so, one year, we each took one, and promised to bring it back the next year, as a tradition.

I still have the M&M from the last party we both attended.

I guess that's pretty sentimental and maybe a little dumb.

I keep it in a wooden box labeled:  Girl's Treasures.  My dad got the box for me when I was a wee thing.  I don't remember how old I was.  It was always a stalwart on my dresser or buried deep in a drawer as I got older and the things inside seemed more sacred to me.

It sits on my dresser now.  My adult self barely glances inside.  Just every so often...

It contains the M&M from my friendship with Stephanie, who is now following my blog about my family.  It also contains:

-  a photograph of the first boy I ever REALLY liked
-  a pin from my first serious boyfriend
-  a tiny plastic elephant with a blue bow around its neck from the baby shower thrown for me when I was pregnant with my son
-  a baby tooth from my dog, Cricket, who grew up with me and died while I was in college from cancer
-  a champagne cork from a wedding I attended as flower girl at the age of six - the bride and groom popped the cork in the parking lot and champagne was passed around.  I scrounged up the cork from the pavement and kept it.
-  a Play-Dough "orange head" wearing a red sweatshirt with a "W" across the chest - an "artistic" representation of our arch swimming rivals from my high school days - made for me by our team captain and good friend, Jessica

I think that might be all that is inside the box.

I couldn't tell you why I keep all of those things.

They are somehow special in their own ways.  Things I can't bring myself to throw away.  It seems like tossing the memory.

Someday I will probably end up having to explain the items to my children or grandchildren - or maybe they will find them after I'm gone and wonder what I wanted with a dog's tooth or a champagne cork.  Maybe they'll apply some strange significance to each item or make up a story.  Maybe I will have the honor of telling them myself.

I will say one thing for sure - M&Ms certainly have an extensive shelf life.

Used Book Stores and Other Tales.

This past Sunday I went to the reading at the local used bookstore and it was everything I thought it could be.

It was not what I necessarily expected.

I had only been to one other reading by an author:  Robert Pinskey, who was the poet laureate of the United States at the time, read several of his poems from The Figured Wheel at the college I attended for my undergraduate work.  He read to a packed room filled with eager beaver college students.  He had a rich, thick voice and poetry flowed out from inside him and lathered his mouth and tongue and spilled out onto us like syrup and butter.  I could have listened to Robert Pinskey read poetry for a lifetime and not found myself bored.

When the Pinskey's reading was over, he exited the building.  We went back to our grind - to class, to apartments - and that was all.

This reading was so much different, and a truly beautiful experience.

I arrived early - before the author - and Joe, the owner of the bookstore, was there with his wife.  They were scuttling around the store, preparing.  He offered me a glass of wine, which I declined, I don't really like the taste of alcohol, and then a cup of coffee, which I greedily accepted and doused with vanilla creamer and stirred with a dirty silver spoon and drank with relish. 

The store was cramped, but genial - I have always loved it.  Books.  Books everywhere and papers with quotes spattered across them - literature and text at every glance, at every turn, at every fingertip at every moment inside the store.  I love how it smells.  How it looks.  I could browse for hours. 

I have been wanting to talk with Joe about acting class options - he's been instrumental in establishing a building with art studios for local artists to rent that will also hold artistic classes, acting being one, and he's asked if I might be interested in teaching there - and I am - but this did not seem the time to talk my business.  This day was about Susan and her book. 

Joe and his wife set out cheese and crackers on a tray.  Set up a small table with Susan's name. 

I lingered in the shelves and thought about Susan.  Trish and Susan.

Trish is the playwright who wrote Butterfly.  Those of you who have been reading here for any length of time have most likely heard about this play.  I had the pleasure of playing the role of David, a transgendered man who is killed by his intolerant mother. 

As the bells tinkled at the door, they walked in together.  It was good to see them both.  I got to talk to Trish a bit about writing and theatre and life while Susan prepped for her reading - mingled with her guests.

The atmosphere was warm and lovely.  I met several people I hadn't met before.  Everyone was there for the same purpose - to hear this reading.  It didn't matter that we didn't know each other - we wanted to support this writer who happened to live in our community and the business of it was something that felt terribly GOOD and RIGHT.

There were not enough chairs for everyone to sit, so when Susan finally got around to actually reading her essay from the book we all tried to find good places to stand.  My friends Kayleigh and Rachel were there by that time.  We tried to stand close to Susan, but behind her, hoping we could see best from that angle but Susan encouraged us to stand in front of her "please", and so we did. 

The reading itself was energizing.  Emotive.  Exciting.  I loved the energy in the room.  Each breath from each body was supportive and caring and everyone was interested in the writing - the art of the writing. 

I was reinvigorated in my own style - in my own words.  I wanted to get back to the pen as soon as I could - to start something great.  Someday.  When my children are older, I might find more than fifteen minutes in a row of uninterrupted time... 

Susan signed my book.  A reporter took our picture for the paper, asked for my name. 

I wanted to stay there, in that room, with those people and in that place for as long as possible. 

It was like oxygen to one who has been depleted...  who has been starved for it.

I couldn't sleep Sunday night.  My mind was racing.  I was so energized.

After the reading my friends and I went to The Refinery for the stars service.

I ended up singing with the band because it would have only been my husband and one other soul if I had not.  Two of us who had come from the reading sang. 

And we got our stars.

I reached into the basket with heart pounding anticipation. 

I clutched the star close to my chest and turned it over to read the front:  LOVE.  Again.  For the second year in a row, I had pulled LOVE. 

My heart leapt.  Warmth spread over my body.  LOVE.

I saw my husband, who was in the sound booth as we all milled about, telling one another about our stars.

"What did you get?"  I asked him.

He showed me the front of his star.

He had LOVE too.

Christmas Time.

Tomorrow is Christmas Eve.

The "eve" has always held a special place in my heart - more special than the day, to be honest.

I love the candlelight service and the Silent Night singing and the anticipation you can almost taste hanging in the air.

My daughter is sick and parked on the couch watching Diego so I'm here contemplating.  I should probably be de-toxing the house, washing sheets, cleaning counter-tops, and the like, but downtime is sacred and contemplation is short-lived around here.

Tomorrow, I'm hoping to make a nice dinner and ring in the Christmas Tide with a full sanctuary and beautiful candles dancing in in chaotic unison.  Maybe tonight I'll bake some cookies and decorate them with icing.  I am thankful to have my husband home from work today and tomorrow, a warm home as I hear the wind beating at the back door, and hot food I can count on.  My heart is filled with gratitude from the year passed.  My life has been through so many sometimes painful but always beautiful changes.  I am learning to embrace this Wabi Sabi world.

Today, for example, my daughter threw up (several times in a row as I carried her to the bathroom) at McDonalds.  We were at the homeschool Christmas party in our area.  I was covered in vomit, she was covered in vomit, and we were altogether pretty disgusting.

When we arrived in the restroom, there were no paper towels, only automatic hand dryers.  I felt paralyzed, holding my sobbing, puke covered toddler, her puke covered lovey, and all in my puke covered coat.

There was another woman in the bathroom wearing one of those Christmas sweaters.  You know the ones.  She took one look at us and said, "Let me help you.  I'll get you some napkins."

I was so filled with gratitude I couldn't even thank her at that moment.

She came back from the restaurant with a handful of napkins and she handed them to me one at a time as I cleaned off lovey, coat, pants, hair, two year old, and floor.

"Thank you so much."  I finally said.

"It's no problem at all."  She said, "It could have been me in here with my grandson.  I've been where you are.  You needed help and I could help you.  It's no problem."

I wanted to cry.  She was so kind.

I thanked her over and over again and she smiled kindly and told me it was no trouble at all.  She even got an employee to come with a mop as I tried to clean the puke from the bathroom floor myself.

As I left McDonalds I wished I had an address so I could send her a thank-you card.

Speaking of love - that woman showed it to me and mine in a huge way today.  Kindness is a beautiful thing.  I can't get enough, and I want to learn to GIVE more. 

What will you do this Christmas Eve?  Who has shown you love this season?  How will you give kindness back?

Blessings to you and yours.  May your Christmas Tide be filled with laughter, hugs, kindness, and love.

Love.

Last year, at The Refinery, I chose "love" as my fruit of the Spirit star for the year.  It's a yearly tradition.  We have these stars cut out of poster board and on each star is written a fruit of the Spirit (love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control).  I have received peace and kindness in the past.

For 2010, my star was Love.

I was so excited to get this particular star.  And I have learned an immense amount about love this year.

I wanted to share it with you...

1.  God's love for me as His child is unconditional.  The part of me that sins and keeps on sinning isn't the part that God sees.  That's the part that Jesus covers.  Does that mean it's okay to sin? No.  Of course not.  If you love somebody back, you don't want to do things that separate you from them. If you fall back into your sin nature and embrace that, then you're essentially telling God you don't care about his Gift to you.  That's just wrong.  But when I screw up.  When I feel guilty.  When I feel ashamed - those are feelings that have nothing to do with My Father.  Those are feelings put upon me by my self or by The Evil One.  Not God.  Does God want me to ask forgiveness?  Yes.  Does God want me to put myself through some  sort of arbitrary period of pain and torture in order to receive absolution?  No.  Jesus paid the full price already.  I don't have to pay it again.  (For more on this, read: The Search for Significance by Robert S. McGee - we did a study of it in my small group this past spring.  It was a serious perspective changer.)

2.  The love God shows to us is the love that we need to show to others.  Unconditional love.  You can't just love your kids when they're behaving well.  You can't just love your husband when he's at his best.  You have to embrace those people where they are.  ALL people - but I think it's healthiest (and maybe HARDEST) to start with the people closest to you. 

This unconditional love road led me to unschooling, and it's where our family lives now.  We have never been better together.

3.  My kids have thrown challenges my way.  They've fought with one another and they've questioned everything and they've given me lesson after lesson in parenting and have truly tested that whole unconditional love thing.  I've grown to see them as people with aspirations and dreams and ideas and plans and talents just exploding from every place imaginable.  It's a beautiful thing.

4.  My love for my husband continues to grow and transform.  He's truly an amazing man.  We've been through so much together and to be able to lean on the knowledge that his love is unconditional for me - we might fight, we might bicker - but he's sticking around...  that's an immense relief, an immense measure of freedom.

5.  Love and freedom go hand in hand.  This was a huge revelation for me.  I've been thinking a lot about freedom and love this year, obviously (when it comes to love).  My son watched forty episodes of Liberty's Kids in three days (including one all night marathon) and I learned a ton about our country (in spite of taking American History three times - twice at the high school level - and NOT because I failed it once - I got A's both times, thank you very much (just moved between grades and guidance, in their infinite wisdom, thought I should take American History again and just skip World so I could be with kids in my grade), and once at the college level) and about freedom and what it meant to people during that time period.  I learned a lot about politics today and the whole freedom thing got me thinking about other freedoms.  Unschooling, Freedom in Christ - I wanted to explore all of this so much more fully - and I HAVE.  So many times I saw God speak to me or heard Him through others when it came to this idea of freedom and love walking together.  Love cannot exist without freedom.  The freedom to CHOOSE.  Love isn't love if there's no choice.  If you "make" someone love you - that's not love, that's slavery.  So that tree in the garden that God said not to touch - THAT was his GIFT to us.  The FREEDOM to choose.  REAL love.

There have been many more lessons, but I think these are the main points from the year. 

I'm sure there are so many more lessons to learn.  My heart is full to bursting and yet there is more room for it to grow- I think that's the final lesson - love is endless.  It doesn't run out.  It fills up and runs over, but there is always more of it to go around.

Reflections on the Mirror.

After starting The Mirror Project last week I've been doing a lot of thinking.

Why did I start this project?  Is it because I want it to catch on so I can be famous?  So I can be on Oprah or something talking about my blog?   So my blog can be listed somewhere important?  So I can afford my own domain name?

Or is this project something that I am doing because I care about the women and girls in my life and the readers of this blog and the women and girls around the world and I'm hoping that in doing this project and viewing these projects they will be able to see themselves for the gorgeous people that they are - on the INSIDE?

It's a soul searching sort of thing.

I want to be honest in my writing.  It's one of my biggest and scariest goals.

So.

Is there some little part of me that wants to be famous?

Yeah.  I admit that.  There is that part that thinks it would be amazing to have my blog recognized on a grand scale.  Did I think about the fact that if this catches on at all then that might happen for me?  Yes.  I did.

Is that the reason I started this project?

No.  It isn't.

I have been praying a lot for humility.  Which is a really scary thing to pray for, because, as they say, when you pray for patience, what you get are opportunities to be patient.  But I don't want this blog, at any point, to be about me getting famous.  That's insanity.  That's not why I'm writing.  It's not why I hope for readership.  It's definitely not why I started this blog.

This blog is a blog that has a lot to do with me.  Sure.  It's my writing.  It's my voice.  A lot of it is based on my personal experiences.  But this blog is about a journey.  A journey into womanhood and through it.  A journey about embracing something that in my younger years I had rejected: my femininity.

It's not some feminist manifesto.  It's not about my political bent.

In the end, the blog is about me trying to spread a message to the women around me that they can embrace the fact that they are women.  It's not a weakness.  It's something in which to find JOY.

So in my soul searching about my reasons for the mirror project, I asked myself a lot of hard questions.  I determined that if this project was really all about me and getting what I wanted and having people do my bidding then I would be taking it down.  Then it was a sickness.

So I prayed.  And I thought about it.  And I asked myself those questions.

And I analyzed the reasons for doing the project at all.

I looked at the pictures sent to me by all these women and I stared at the words I had written on my own bathroom mirror and I realized the why.

So often, when we look in the mirror, we look to check for flaws.

We want to see if that pimple is still there or if we have a hair out of place or if we've got some food stuck between our teeth.

With these words on the mirror it is hard to see the mirror as something negative. It's hard to stand there and study how your skin doesn't fall the way you'd like it to when you are faced with the reasons why you are beautiful and none of them have to do with your skin.  That's the first thing.

The second thing is - as I was writing my reasons - I realized that it was sort of hard.

It was easy to write down things others had said about my body - I could write down - unique hairstyle, pretty eyes, shapely collar bones... but when it came to the internal beauty parts, I found it more difficult.

I found myself coming up with cop-out answers that really didn't have a lot to do with me.  It actually took some time and a re-write to decide on the three things that I really wanted to have on the mirror and in my photograph.

I think the biggest point of this project is for women and girls to get inside themselves enough to figure out what it really is about them that makes them beautiful.  To take that time to come up with three things.

I hope that for many of you, it will be easy!

But for those of you for whom it is hard - those are the women I really hope take the time to do this.  To think about it.  What IS it that makes you beautiful?  What are your three things?

As I was doing all this soul searching, pacing around the kitchen in front of the computer, putzing around the house in general, and thinking about what I had written and why I had written it and wondering what the project was all about, I trudged back upstairs to the bathroom.  While I'd figured out the symbolism behind the Mirror Project, I still felt sort of weird about it.  Like I was missing something.  Like maybe it really was just some selfish self-indulgence.  I also figured, now it was evening, my writing had been there awhile, it was probably time to just go ahead and clean off the mirror.

When I got to my bathroom, this is what I saw:

The brown dry erase marker was lying next to my purple one, still uncapped.

The heart was from my son.  And it's message was so clear I could feel the tears welling up in my eyes as I stared at it right there, over my sink, and under my words.  A message of love.  Unconditional love.  The love of a child.

I realized in that moment a myriad of things - but more than anything it affirmed what I was doing.  That this project was a worthy one.  No matter how many women actually send a photograph.  My son wanted to reassure me that I was loved no matter what.  My beauty isn't just wrapped up in what I think of me.  It's wrapped up in the love that I am able to give to the people around me - it's part of our duties as women to make OTHERS feel beautiful... 

And when I went into the kids' bathroom, I saw this:

Hearts.  Hearts all over their mirror - and my two year old daughter's additional writing in purple (that's her in the bathtub).

To pass on this love to my children - to  understand and have them understand that to pass on love is the greatest thing that we can do, and to understand that when you pass on love you feel love in return, and that it is cyclical and beautiful and Godly...THIS is the lesson!  Jonah, my amazing six year old, got this simple truth when I couldn't wrap my head around it. 

My son drew that heart on my mirror because of the love that flowed out of him when he saw what I had written - he wanted me to know that no matter what the words said or what I was thinking about myself, I was loved.  And after he had done that, he wanted to spread that love even further.  To his sister, and yes, to himself.

It is my absolute feeling that to love is the greatest duty we have on this planet.  To love others.  And in order to love others - to REALLY love others we must first understand our own worth.  Our own worthiness of love.  To know that WE are loved.  To understand the great love that has been shown to us through Christ - yes, this is a part of my message.  I know not all my readers will follow here, but I think you get the point anyway - the great love WE have been shown can spill out onto us and into us and through us and out of us to those around us.  Gosh - this project really has NOTHING to do with me at all.

I'm just the messenger.

And a participant in something more.

So.

The Mirror Project is about beauty.  It's true.  But it's also about LOVE.  Loving ourselves.  Loving our children.  Loving the people around us.  Allowing them to love us.  To see us.  Knowing that we have value and knowing that everyone around us is valuable too.  And lovable.  And somewhere, sometimes very deep down, they are also filled with beauty.

Princess.

Yesterday my daughter dressed up as a princess.

She was truly beautiful, even glamorous in her sparkly new dress (from a bag of hand-me-downs from a friend) that was a little too big and falling off of her shoulders as she ran up and down the hall and twirled with delight.  She is two years old, and she knows what beautiful means.  She knows what it means to wish for the people around her to delight in her, to see her, to know that she is important and special, and yes...lovely.

It's not something that goes away when we grow up.  It's why we wear make-up and get our hair done and lavish over the prom dresses in the store even when we are far too old to go to prom.  It's why we get in a tizzy over the First Lady's inaugural ball dress and the wedding dresses of the stars.  We can live a little bit vicariously through them as we watch them walk down the red carpet or twirl across the dance floor with their husbands. 

I've been thinking a lot about beauty these past couple days because of my daughter and also because of the song that my husband wrote about me and about this blog.  I've been thinking about what it means to feel beautiful and to be beautiful and what it means for me, personally.

I've also been tossing around that whole, maybe I should grow my hair back, thing. 

It's funny - one day I'm certain it's what I should do and the next day I can't imagine having to take a brush to my hair or use conditioner or worry about rolling the windows down in the car.  It's a waffling decision at best daily. 

Reading the lyrics to my husband's song I almost cried - he talks about how he thinks I'm beautiful with the hair like this and just knowing he would think I was beautiful no matter what I did is a pretty great feeling. 

I wish that for all of you out there who are pretty sure that marriage is where you're headed.  If he wouldn't think you were pretty anymore after you shaved your head you might want to re-think that situation.

This is where a lot of people will say that we should want to please our husbands and be beautiful and whatnot for them.  I get that.  I think it's great to dress up for the husband - guys are visual creatures - that's why women are prettier than men (if you don't believe it, check out visual art for the past six hundred years), but I don't think you should have to be perfect all the time for the guy to love you.  The right guy is going to love you in your sweatpants.  Will he appreciate the little black dress?  Duh.  But he'll still find those sweatpants kinda cute. 

Letter to a Young Girl.

Dear _________,

I am writing because I was told something about you.  I don't want to say that anyone around me is a gossip, because they are not.  I just want you to know that I know how it feels, and I want to say, that you don't have to keep doing what you're doing.

I remember when I was your age.  I thought I knew everything.  I believed so many lies.  I thought that all the hot guys just wanted sex, and if I wanted a hot guy, I'd have to put out eventually.  I dated a boy who told me if we hadn't had sex in six months the relationship was over.  That was when I was fourteen.  I'm sure that your freshman year seems like eons in the past, but these are the times in your life that will be etched into your memory forever - bright and sometimes glaring memories of choices you made in your youth that will forever affect your heart and soul.

I've been told that you don't care about any of that.  That sex to you is meaningless.  You just do it for fun.

It's an easy thing to say and work to make yourself believe.  Lots of us get there - to that point where we believe it - but when we look back on our partners, however many there may be - nameless or faceless - they all own a part of us now.  And it's something that is so true it burns inside.

Perhaps you have completely bought into the lie that it IS meaningless.  If that's the case, then it's important for you to look back on the first time.  Was it meaningless then?  Did you even want to do it?  Were you afraid?  Did he hurt you?  Or was it someone you loved deeply - you thought they loved you - you thought this was going to be forever?  Maybe not - you had no thoughts about the future - you just wanted the assurance that someone loved you RIGHT NOW.  Or at least lusted enough to want to be with you completely in that moment.

I guess the whole reason for me writing is because I care about you so much.  You are truly beautiful.  Talented, good looking, intelligent.  You deserve more than just the occasional roll in the hay with some boy who might not give you the time of day tomorrow, or who will talk about you like some warrior conquering a city, or refer to you as a tramp because you gave it up so easily.

Sex does mean something.  It's the most complete physical union possible between two people.  It is the way we create new life.

Spirituality aside.  Sex is emotional.  Sex is physical, mental - you have to give up something of yourself to have sex, and even more of yourself to enjoy it.

A shame to be comfortably numb.

A shame to miss out on the beauty behind the action.

I don't know what happened to you in the past.  I don't know what you are thinking or how you are feeling but I know that there is pain when someone you've given something so important to treats it like it doesn't matter.  When he treats it like a business deal.  You can pretend that it feels the same to you, but it would just be a lie.  And you know what?  He's lying too.


There was a day in all our lives when we were innocent children.  When we believed in the reality of princes and princesses and knights in shining armor.  A time when all of us women believed we could be the princess, and all the boys believed they could be the knight.

In this crazy world we lose that somewhere along the way.  We make a mistake or we are hurt by someone or someone takes our innocence from us by force.  But inside we are always the princess wishing for the knight.

It is my prayer that soon, your tears will be wiped away and you will find the one who treats you like the princess you are.

- R.J.

Kindness, 2009.

Today is Epiphany Sunday, and before I turn the lights out on the day, I had to write a blog with reference to the testimony I gave at church tonight and explain myself in writing so I don't forget the things I learned.

To give you a little context:

I go to a church called First Saints Community Church. It is a multi-campus church, and we have four campuses. The campus I attend is The Refinery. It's a pretty amazing place, pretty tight knit, very artistic and organic, and just downright cool. I've learned more about God and community and loving people for who they are there than at any other time in my life, but I digress.

Every year on Epiphany Sunday at The Refinery (this is the third year of the tradition), we draw stars from a basket. On each star is written a Fruit of the Spirit (you can find these in Galatians 5:22 - 23 in the Bible): love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control. Our pastor prays over the baskets of stars, and then everyone draws a star, without looking, from the basket, and this is to be our fruit of focus for the year.

Last year, on Epiphany Sunday, I drew the star of kindness.

At first I was a little stunned. I thought I had always been a "nice" person. I didn't think I had all that much to work on in the kindness department.

Little did I know...

Shaving my head was something that happened just a few short weeks after I drew that star, and as you, my readers know, I had a lot to learn.

How I was treated by others was so appalling and surprising to me - how they stared, how they whispered, how they said blatantly mean things right in front of my face as though I was in another room... those things hurt - wounded - but also taught me.

I wondered how many times I had stared at someone like that - without remorse - just stared at the person who dressed a little differently. How many times as a kid I had said, in a sarcastic voice "Is that a boy or a girl?" How many times had I laughed at someone behind his or her back, to his or her face, judged someone I had never spoken to - assumed things I did not understand - how many times had I forgotten that the person moving slowly in the grocery line was a person, and not just an inconvenience to me at the time. That the clerk had a life, love, passions - wasn't just a face behind the counter doing a job. That the waitress depended on her paycheck. That everyone has their baggage, their pain, their joy, their love - and I am not the one to judge them. It is my mission to be kind to ALL.

I thought that kindness was about how you treated people directly. Now I know that it is about seeing people with the eyes of Jesus - seeing them as his children - seeing them as HIM. Namaste - the spirit that lives in you - this is what we should see when we look at another human being. Jesus. A person. Someone who is literally God breathed - no matter what their present circumstances.

I hope that I can remember this lesson and continue with kindness in faith.

This year I chose the star of love. I can only imagine what the year might bring.

First Post

This is my first post here. I've written other places, but I wanted a space to really talk about the things I like to do, the things I'm doing, and to in general describe stuff. Basically, I'm a blog whore. I write different things on every blog that I do, and I write in four different places if you count this blog. I have a blog for the every day, journal stuff. I have a blog for trying to change the world. I have a blog for all of my friends to read. This blog, I'm not sure what it will be. I want to talk about God. I want to talk about the experiment that is our church's current deal right now, The Refinery. I want to talk about hiking and running and just being in God's creation. Maybe this is my blog about God. Who knows.

I do want to say that my blog's title means a lot to me. For a long time, I had a blog called Juliet's
Question. In fact, I still write there to journal, but the fact is, that title is sort of irrelevant now. Her question was in Act 2, during the balcony scene. She asks, simply, "Dost thou love me?"

While Romeo throw her flowery words and empty promises, THIS is what is on Juliet's heart. She wants a straight answer. She knows that she loves him, but she needs to know what he truly feels for her. Does he just want a date for the night? Is he just looking to get in her pants because he thinks she's kinda hot? Does he want to marry her? Juliet refuses to settle for the guy who just wants to get in her pants. She wants a man who is willing to be with her no matter what, who is willing to face the risks defined in their relationship head on...

The problem with Romeo was that, in reality, he couldn't face it.

I don't want to get into some sort of literary dispute about it, but the fact is, Romeo couldn't deal. He killed himself, in an extremely wussy way, I might add, because he thought that Juliet was dead, and he couldn't go on without her. This is not the strong man Juliet wanted. Is it romantic? Well...sort of. Did he love her? I really think that's still up in the air. If Juliet was dead, Romeo was banished for nothing, couldn't go back to his family, just didn't want to face life. Juliet kills herself as well, but it's because she feels responsible for Romeo's death. Not because she can't go on without him, but because she can't go on WITH the guilt of him killing himself for her.

Either way, it's kind of moot.

The fact is, I feel like Juliet has been redefined for me. Romance isn't what it was when we were fourteen, or even nineteen. I'm twenty-eight, and I'm sure Juliet will be redefined for me again and again. I have learned that true love is about choice, commitment, - not how hot the guy is or how much you want to sleep with him. I have learned that the greatest romancer of a girl's heart is God - what boy could paint for you the sunset? What boy could waft the scent of roses over your nose as you walk through the trees he crafted to shade you on the very day? And I've also learned that my second greatest romancer is my man, Michael, who has shown me that I am not made up of the world's definition of me. I am more than that. You just have to look deeper.