The Tao Of Hugs

Hugs are magic. They have powers that a simple handshake does not have. Have you ever seen a girl throw herself into a guy's handshake? I think not.

There are many types of hugs. For your reading enjoyment, I've listed a few, with descriptions!

"Side Hug" - Appropriate for youth groups, opposite-sex pals, and group photos. You know the drill.. stand side to side with someone and put one arm around the other person's waist. I have the unfortunate habit of being what I call a "side-hug leaner" which means I always somehow end up with my head resting on the other person's shoulder. This can cause all sorts of awkwardness if not properly administered.

"Bear Hug" - Another friendly hug, both arms thrown around the other person in abandon. It's like joy embodied in an action. Works well for soldiers coming home from war or anyone stepping off of an airplane.

"Mama Bird Hug" - This is the one groups of girlfriends give each other. You kinda wrap your arms lightly around the other person like you're cradling an egg. You can add a shoulder pat if you want. The key is to be delicate.

"Bro Hug" - This one must be very carefully done in order to preserve the full measure of manliness of the person(s) giving the hug. One arm around the back at shoulder level, slap the back a time or two. Only lean in from the waist, and don't lean in too much.. this is very essential to giving a proper bro hug.

The "I've Got My Hands Full" hug - It's when you kinda prod someone with your elbow when they try to hug you, because you do want to hug them back but you've got your hands full. It still counts as a hug cause your heart is in it.

And of course, the "Bow Chicka Bow Wow Hug" - Definitely an opposite-sex type of hug. The girl's arms around the guys neck, the guy hugging the girls waist... and so on. WARNING: may lead to... other things. Use with caution.

I suggest immediately locating someone and trying out a hug on them. It's therapeutic. I'm pretty sure hugs cause rainbows to show up and bunnies to hop by. Try it. You won't be disappointed..



Yes please!

Jesus Was Kinda A Zombie

Caught your attention with that title, did I?

I'm guessing 62% of the people reading this are amused and/or intrigued, 25% are offended, and 13% only clicked the link because it had a picture of a green bunny cookie.

Easily offended? Now is the time to go back to Facebook and play Jesusville.

Oops, too harsh. Sorry.

But not sorry at the same time. I'm sick to death of religion and people getting offended over everything, and people just going along with "the rules" because it's been done that way for the last 145 million years. It's time to shake it up, people.

Cliche alert! If you give what you always give, you're gonna get what you've always got. Got? Gotten? Eh, grammar. Point: I'm done with "getting what I've always got"! I want more!

I'm not in the business of angering people on purpose. But if you get angry at me because I'm trying to push you out of your comfort zone, or because you've formed an opinion of me that's not based on facts, or because you're threatened by me, then I'm not feeling too sympathetic for you. Honestly, there's nothing to be threatened by. Come on.

I'm just coming into my own, is all. I'm finding my way apart from the influences that have stifled me for so long, and all you're seeing is a girl, unfettered.

Ranting aside, canned mushrooms: not worth the trouble. They kinda pop when you eat them. This makes me shudder.

But anyway, Jesus was kinda a zombie, right? He was dead for THREE DAYS before coming back. And he wants your soul (your MIND, will and emotions) = He wants your brain.

Oh, offended again? Sigh.

I think Jesus would think it's hilarious.

I kinda want to hang out with Jesus and see what he'd do if he lived in Springfield instead of Israel. I'm pretty sure some Skate World trips would be happening, and He would probably request that the DJ play Some Alicia Keys or Jay-Z. Probably edited though. I bet Jesus could bust a move on the rink. But he wouldn't be down with calling women the kinds of not-so-nice names they use in hip hop songs. Jesus would recognize a sick beat when He heard one, though. I also think Jesus might have a secret playlist of N*SYNC on his iPod. Just sayin.

We might hang out at a coffeeshop downtown and talk (anti-)religion and politics. We'd strike up conversations with stoners, hippies, and single moms. See what they are all about and show em a little love, Jesus-style. Heal some diseases, set some people free from addictions. Let them spread the word from there.

Then we'd hit Ring Of Fire for some Pad Thai. We'd take it out to the park and see who was hungry, and just keep serving bowlful after bowlful from that little paper carton. Miracles, holla!

Oh, my favorite: teaching Jesus how to use slang. "Word" - It means something completely different to a dude that wrote the Bible.

I just want to hang with Jesus, that's all. Really. I want to know what He was like as a regular joe, hanging out with the middle class, blue collar workers. I want to be one of those disciples. I want to be Mary, sitting at His feet and just listening to what He had to say.

I made Easter bunny cookies and decorated them like zombies. That's what sparked this whole blog. I made ninja bunnies as well. Here they are:



I also think that Jesus was kind of a ninja. But that's another blog.

Love, loss, and everything in between

I love running. I love pulling up my hair, putting in my headphones and only hearing my own breath, heartbeat, and footsteps in those few silent seconds between tracks. I love the exhilaration and the freedom of sailing past ponds and streams in the park in the summer, and in splashing through puddles on the streets while the rain falls on my face in the winter.

Running is freedom. Freedom that makes my lungs ache and my heart sing.

But I find that even though I love it, when I get out of the habit for some reason, it's so difficult to get back into it. This makes me wonder how I can say I really love something when I can set it aside so easily when it proves convenient.

The beauty of love is that if it is true, it does abide and remain in us though distractions may come. Of course, love comes in many forms, and the love I feel for running is not the same as the love I feel for my family, or for a romantic partner, or for my God.

No matter where life takes me, how far or near, good, bad, desperate, abundant, melodic or dissonant, my family and my God have never forsaken me. My love for them has not diminished or dimmed, and is reciprocated. In the case of God, it is more than reciprocated...it's poured out like a flood, all over me, surrounding me in my darkest nights and brightest days alike. More than I could ever hope to be able to love Him, He loves me. No matter what I do.

It's what gets me through, and keeps a smile on my face. Even through tears. Even when I'm afraid.

I've been thinking about loss a lot today... and remembering that I have a history of finding myself in an emotional slump when something I love is taken away, or when I dwell on it. I refuse to go there anymore, so I have to change my way of looking at it.

Here's something:
I can't lose what doesn't belong to me.

Life is temporary. How can we possibly believe that we can lay permanent claim to any of it? Friends come and go. Sometimes you, or someone you love, gets sick. Lovers leave you and get married to other people. Sometimes you make minimum wage, sometimes you are rolling in cash.

Regardless. REGARDLESS. There is no end to the faithfulness of my God.

And even if I lose what does belong to me, even down to the last penny, down to the last friend, possession, free moment, or healthy day, where does that leave me?

In the same place I was when I had everything. In the hands of a mighty God.

Some people would say that's not a safe place to be... look at the world around us and the suffering we see on a daily basis. The war, poverty, natural disasters. I can't explain why some people suffer, except that people make their choices, and our choices affect everyone around us. We cause ourselves to suffer sometimes, and sometimes others cause us to suffer.

The stupidity of man does not diminish the greatness of God. But sometimes it DOES give Him opportunity to step into an impossible situation and flex his muscles.

I know that life is not always going to go the way I wish it would. There are many things I wish had turned out differently than they did. Many decisions I wish I could reverse.

But I can still smile and look forward to what lies ahead, knowing that I can handle whatever comes. Life's good like that.

Fashion Evolution

I used to have a little.. shall we say, "problem" with fashion.

I HAD NO STYLE.



Some might say that I still have that problem.



Yes, that's a tutu I'm wearing.



My "space cowgirl" shirt.



Um...


But it's okay, since I'm evolving. I'm changing. I discovered the joys of flats and Alice Temperley and pageboy caps. My hair is a normal(ish) color.

And while I'm super excited to leave that red hair and pink cowboy hat in the past, I'm even more stoked that I've left behind the girl that lived inside those crazy outfits. Not all of her, just so many of the parts that needed to go. I've held on to the core of who I am, and been able to weed out many of the negative things about my personality that I needed to let go of.

Not in my strength. In His.

For example:

Major depression.
Deep insecurity.
Fear of being alone.
Resentment and jealousy of those who were in the places in their lives that I wanted to be.
Bitterness against people who've hurt me.

So, so wiped away. There is barely a trace remaining, really. It used to be my life, my everything.. the way I defined myself. Now it's a fading memory, a person that I can hardly believe used to be me.

Replaced by:

Hope that will not fade, no matter what seems to be going on around me.
Confidence in myself and who I'm becoming, but retaining a drive to better myself, not content to stay the same.
Peace in solitude.
Genuine happiness for those in "better" places than myself, and a revelation that I can truly be content where I am while still striving forward. A realization that we are all in certain places for certain reasons, and if we were all in the same place, it would get a little bit crowded.
Forgiveness.

That last one is huge... I've held on to hurt so many times, sometimes without even realizing it, that I've poisoned my soul with it, often..

It's amazing to be free. To love, unfettered, those who've hurt me. To accept forgiveness for the things I've done to others. To breathe in peacefully, not choked by tears of frustration and hurt.

It's ok to hurt sometimes. We are human and we have emotions for a reason. But it's not ok to drag it around forever.


I just re-read something that a friend wrote about me many years ago. He said I was "meekness with attitude".

I sure hope I didn't lose that. ;)

Regret, Schmegret.

The first line of this blog was originally "I have regrets."

But after having a sort of revelation the other day after hearing yet another song lyric, I decided that the phrase above isn't entirely true.

There are things in my life I would have done differently, for sure. Haven't we all been there? There's always some situation that happened, we just wish we could have a re-do on. Like when you're playing Super Mario on the NES and you enter the Game Genie code wrong... you hit "reset" and everything starts over, all mistakes washed away.

But what I realized is that regrets require maintenance.. they don't just have life on their own and continue to haunt you. You have to invest in them, give them thought and attention, for them to continue to exist.

I don't have time to maintain these regrets.

I don't have time to make myself sad about things I've done wrong, things I can't change. There is no point in being sad over something that's done, gone, finito.

I need my time for working out the present and the future. The past has taken enough of my time.

There are lessons to learn from the past, I agree. And for this reason alone, maybe it's good to analyze what went wrong. Not dwell, just objectively assess, decide what would have been a better choice, and move on.

And now it's time to set the bar higher.. and resolve that the present and future are not going to follow the same distorted pattern as the past.

No way.

Pride, Bananas, and Lip Injections

Have you ever asked God to break down your pride a little bit, make you more humble?

Oh boy, does He listen to that one closely...

All the little things I was placing my security in start to degrade. And all around me, the pride of others seems to inflate! Oh man, I'm feeling tiny.

But that's ok.. wasn't that the point? :)

A couple weeks ago I kept thinking, "What's going on here, why is it everyone's personal mission all of a sudden to try to 'put me in my place', especially when they are obviously not in a good place themselves, or when they barely know me?" And I remembered praying a little, fleeting, genuine prayer to God a month or so ago to "break away my pride".

"Oh yeeeahhhh.. he he he. about that one, God.... um, I actually meant, 'break down OTHER people's pride. yea, that's kinda what I meant."

Nope, not good enough. You asked, you got it.

I came to realize that when you ask for change, God can use anyone to accomplish His will in you - weak, strong, humble, proud, dictator, president, friend, enemy. Luckily I avoided the dictator one. But the validity of the change isn't negated because of the spirituality, or lack of it, in the ones God uses to help you change. Otherwise, how would He ever use me to help others? I'm not perfect either. It's a great system. Bump a few of those crazy imperfect humans around together for a while and they start to sharpen each other up.

Hmmm. No matter how few bananas I buy, or how determined that I will eat all of them before they go brown, one always turns bad on me. Every time. Banana bread!

While I will not pretend that it's fun to start to realize, and then start to lose, the sheer quantity of things in my life I was misguidedly trusting in (or finding my personal value and worth in), it is strangely refreshing to see them go, and also appropriate for this time in my life. I have a lot of things that I want to accomplish this year, and it would be incredibly hard to do it while trying to hold a pile of unneeded things in my greedy little hands.

Something worthwhile to note is that when you ask God to diminish your pride, He doesn't leave you empty. We only THINK that we need that pride, and as it starts to leave, He fills the space with new dreams, with promises, and with more knowledge and revelation of who He is. The tiny little world we boxed ourselves into and held on to with all our might became a vast universe of possibilities when we let the box get cut away.

So, if diminishing your pride has been on your mind lately, go ahead and ask Him for help! It's kind of a constant process. It can be hard, yes, but really, aren't some things just worth fighting for?

And it doesn't happen overnight or last forever...kinda like collagen injections. You have to get them touched up every 3 months or so. But aren't the results worth it? ;)



Bucket list:

Hawaii. August. Surfing.


I hate blogs without pictures. So here's one:

Doesn't it make you relax, just looking at it? sigh.

Holy Hands, Batman!

I heard a song today on the radio that made me think.

(I don't normally listen to "Christian" radio, sorry, but I just don't. I was shamelessly trying to catch a peep of one of the radio spots for The Uprising Conference. No luck so far.)

It said "I raise up holy hands."

Anyone who's ever heard a worship song in their life probably instantly has the whole thing running in their heads right now, but it was that one part the really stuck with me. Holy hands.

A devotional I was reading today encouraged me to take a look at my hands, my feet, my physical body, and think about the ways it can be used to serve.

My hands don't look or feel particularly holy. In fact, they look kinda pale and scarred up. They've participated, along with the rest of my bad self, in things that do not even remotely resemble holiness.

But then again, I think that sometimes we tend to think of holiness as some angelic, zen state, a way of being so perfect and so wonderful that we are literally radiating goodness and everyone around us wants to bask in our warmth.

Example: Chelsey and John reading the Bible in Hawaii when they could have been out surfing. See the holiness literally radiating off of them?



Yea. Holy Spirit fall.

According to the Bible, to be holy is not to be surrounded by a creepy yellow ring of fire (thanks, Photoshop!). It's to be set apart, free from impurity, pure, innocent.

Alright, who isn't already innocent and pure?? We're done here. Time for a new subject.

The downside if this is that we are all lacking in innocence. Some more than others. *meaningful look*. I think we all feel at times the weight of our own impurity in the face of God.

But we don't have to.

The upside is this: simply put, "God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God."

Namely, Jesus. Sinless man became the embodiment of sin for all of us who have done wrong. We are the "righteousness" of God just by accepting the sacrifice made for us.

Righteousness: "integrity, virtue, purity of life, rightness, correctness of thinking, feeling, and acting."

Done, and done! My hands are holy indeed, no matter what they've seen in the past.

Just like yours. Let's go out and do something good, maybe even something sacrificial, for our fellow man today in honor of the sacrifice that was made to give us those holy hands.