Tribes

My days have been quite hectic, and my nights full of dreamless sleep.

I know nothing of the length of my days.  I know nothing of the length of days allotted for my country, and I fear that in my country we are in a stupor where we imagine our days go on forever.

Call me a radical.  It's a badge of honor nowadays.  It seems like one by one, in increasingly rapid succession, our freedoms and values are coming under attack. When I say "our", I'm talking about my tribes.  Tribes is a term I've seen used lately.  I wish we didn't need terms like this, but it seems we do.  Tribes seem to be people whose interests and values we identify with.  People with whom we belong.

I first and foremost am a follower of Jesus Christ.
He has this giant banner over me, a banner of love.  I am His.  I am marked for eternity by him, bought and paid for, under the wings of my great physician and good shepherd.  When you speak of the Christians, you speak of me, even though many Christians do stupid things I'd rather not identify with.

I also identify in part with the Southern Baptists, because of my history, and my growing up years.  I have a soft spot in my heart for them.
But the tribe I flock to more is the liturgical churches.  Lord bless them.  I'll get it sorted out someday.

I am a Texan.
We are different than some of the Southern states, as we were once our own country.  We entered the Union voluntarily as a sovereign nation, and it's written into our constitution that we can leave (not that they'd let us).   I'm all about the Alamo, Sam Houston, Dallas, The Rangers, and the Cowboys.  Yehaww.

I am a Southerner.
I am a Southerner.  I think like a Southerner.  I am the great great granddaughter of a Confederate soldier.  We aren't all "America or die".  We feel like we should maintain some healthy resistance to the federal government.  We don't always trust them.  I think that's okay.  I'm happy with this.  I love the long summer humid nights full of mosquitos, fireflies,and the sound of locusts back home.  I love the drawl I hear when people speak.  Bad grammar and hot headed thinking makes me bristle, but I love the people of the South overall.

I will not apologize for who I am, downplay that I love where I'm from.  I miss it when I'm away.  I'm loyal to my heritage, rebels and all.

I am an American.
America has a great place in the world.  We have been a shining hope and example of liberty to a great many people.  Nothing represents this better than our role in World War Two.  I miss that America.  I fear for us, daily.  We are far too lackadaisical in the comfort of our own freedom.  We won't be around forever, at least not in a recognizable form.

I am a Singer.
I see my life as a connective variety of songs.  I identify with music.  I think about diction and tone.  I have a hard time enjoying church if the music is bad.  I just see life different than those who aren't musical, and it grows increasingly obvious in ways it didn't used to be.  Sound is important to me.

I am a libertarian.
Kinda.  I mean, I am, but I have strong feelings about such things as abortion.  I think people should be free to do what they wish, but it stops at harming another person.  That is the case with abortion.  Killing your own children shouldn't be legal.  I also struggle with things like "gay marriage".  I think it shouldn't be the government's place to legitimize it...but I also think it's morally wrong.  So I think it should be legal, but in a way where the government is out of it completely.  I'm still forming my political beliefs, and politics weary me.


These are just a few tribes that I have.  There are many more.  We all need a place to belong, and people with whom to identify.  What are some of your tribes?

Quote by General Patrick Cleburne, prophet.

If the South lost the War of Between the States:  “It means that the history of this heroic struggle will be written by the enemy. That our youth will be trained by Northern school teachers; will learn from Northern school books their version of the war; will be impressed by all of the influences of History and Education to regard our gallant debt as traitors and our maimed veterans as fit subjects for derision.” 

What I learned at U-Jam Instructor Training

Hello everyone!

It's been a great week.  I've had so much going on that I haven't taken the time to write.  God is adding so much to my life, and it's in the little twists and turns that I never really expect that I see him moving the most.  It's *never* like I thought it was going to be.

This past weekend I got to fulfill a long term goal: I did the training to become a U-Jam instructor.  If you've never heard of U-Jam, you probably have seen people at the gym in classes, dancing their little tookuses off, sweating and smiling and burning about a million calories.  The person up at the front is who I am training to be.  My life has been freakishly changed by this type of class, and U-Jam in particular.  U-Jam is a fitness dance class using world beats, so it's got hip-hop, Latin, Reggae, jazz, top 40...pretty much anything awesome and current.  I wear a heart rate monitor in class and I usually burn between 500 and 700 calories.  Not bad for an hour of fun!

To be honest, I was dreading this training.  I am now almost 100% sure that everyone has the same doubts and worries as I do concerning his own limits and fears.  "Will I be good enough?" "Will anyone want to come to my classes?" "Will I know what to say?"  "Do I have the talent?"  Sound familiar?  Those questions go across the board to all humans.  Self doubt is pretty rampant, if we are honest, and there are personally many things I've talked myself out of doing in my life because I thought I wasn't good enough.  Yikes!

Well, this wasn't one of those times!

For two days we sweated our butts off, smiled, learned how to cue and pump up a class, worked on swag, talked about fitness, had amazing laughs and just kept going till we were done!  I'm so glad I did this and I'm so glad that I am one step close to teaching.

I've got another hurdle to jump: my video assessment, and I'll be doing that soon.  Until then I can bask in the glow of the fellowship and purpose I've found doing something I love.  It really is ok to take a chance.

Good Friday

If Good Friday feels "not good", it's because of the Deep Magic. This is where things work backwards. How could the Son of God dying be a good thing? How could the only sinless person being punished for sin be good? The giver of Life retreating into Death and being defeated seem like a loss for everyone. They seem like a whole lot of BAD. So how could this be good? Sometimes God works in the exact opposite way that it seems like He should. There are a lot of backwards things in the world, and today is only the beginning. I am free and pardoned, therefore I call this day Good.

My Curmudgeonly Take on Facebook News Page

I'm a normal Facebook user.  I see things in my feed from friends, acquaintances, business contacts, and a few pages which I follow.  I recently unfollowed or "unliked" (still can't get into that term) the Facebook page for my local news station here in my hometown.  Do I still actually like (hold them in esteem, friendship, and respect) this news station?  Sure I do!  But I couldn't stand the way they were running their Facebook page!  I was seeing posts such as "Holy Yoga arson, Batman" (a woman sets fire to a yoga studio),  "Selfie Fail" (a man takes a picture with a burning building),  and this:

THOUGHTS? Eva Mendes recently had heartthrob Ryan Gosling’s baby. When asked if she wears comfortable pants around the house, the actress told Extra: “You can’t do sweatpants. … No, ladies, number one cause of divorce in America, sweatpants, no!”

This constant stream of "new style" updates coupled with the inane comments that I would read for some reason (never read the comments if you want to maintain any faith in humanity) led my my unfollowing the page and just having to get my news the old fashioned way.

I know that I'm probably an old fashioned fuddy duddy.  But whats the point of being a bit of a curmudgeon if you can't have a good rant now and then about the news?  I want my news to be written like someone with a journalism degree.  I want to see a difference between Buzzfeed (good Lord!) and my local news station.  I want to see some level of decorum and seriousness to the tone of how the news is presented.

Many would argue and get into the fact that the news is rigged, only reports things of a certain political slant, etc.  Of course it is.  I'm mainly talking about a cultural aesthetic.  There are some things that we, as a culture, hold in a high esteem.  Whether this is good or bad is not what I'm saying.  But it can't always be Casual Friday in our culture.  There are some things which command or demand a bit of starch in our shirts, softer voices; more thoughtful words. Funerals are one of those things.  Even heathens know that there's something about funerals which makes us act differently than we do when we play XBox.  

When I lived in the UK for 6 months, I picked up on the fact that most of their newspapers looked like our American tabloids.  They had sort of a sleazy feel to them, and that was even the most respected ones.  I may not like the politics of the New York Times, but that paper is respected and respectable.  It feels classy, almost scholarly, and like I'm really holding a newspaper in my hand when I pick it up.  I can almost guarantee you that their papers started out just as respectable as ours did.  It's a gradual cultural slide into the toilet bowl if no one stops it. 

My local news channel still maintains the on-air seriousness that you would expect from a local news station.  But it's the Facebook page that suffers.  It is probably run by some intern barely out of diapers, almost finished with some dorky degree he's getting.  He writes headlines for the Facebook page while checking his Instagram and KiK with the other hand, between slurps of Starbucks.  He's just a product of his culture.  So am I.  So are you. 

But let's try to be mindful.  We make the culture by how we act, react, and the attitudes we teach our kids.  Let's figure out a way to "set some levels" in how we regard life.  It's not all the same.  

Jammin'

I've had a spectacular week so far.

Standing up for myself has proved to be really confidence-building.  I must remember this for next time.

On Monday I was taking a nap and my phone rang and woke me up.  It was the associate producer at one of the theatres where I auditioned this week asking me to come for a callback.  Total surprise, and I'm walking on air thinking about it!  I expect nothing, but it's a really fun script and I had a total blast preparing for the first audition.  So I'm looking forward to that...yay!

I am getting close to doing my instructor training for U-Jam Fitness.  This is a big step for me, as I've been dancing this format for 3 years and totally love it.  I see how happy it makes me, puts a smile on my face, burns a ton of calories, and makes me feel great the rest of the day.  I want to share that with people.  Fitness instructors change lives and that is something I definitely want to do.

(If you didn't know, which you probably don't, I weigh about 40 pounds less than I did in college.  I did it slow and steady, over a long period of caring about myself and my weight, getting help with my depression, growing up a lot, and learning how to eat and exercise.  You can do it too!)

I should be doing the training in the next month or so, and it will be the start of the steps to get certified to teach.  Yes!

I'm singing a lot over the next week for Holy Week at church.
Anglicans do the whole thing, and do it up right, bells and whistles and all!  I should probably blog about each day as it comes.  I never knew the depth and richness of this liturgical tradition until I started singing at this church.  I grew up Baptist and we sort of gave Anglicans the side-eyed sneer and ignored them.  I'm so glad this church gig fell into my lap at a time when I so needed God to plant me somewhere.  That's another blog post for another day.

I hope you are having a good week.  It's the middle of Lent...but Easter is just around the corner.  Don't forget that :)

Come at me, bro

Come at me, bro.

No, seriously.  You had me pretty upset yesterday, my ANON (as you shall now be called).  You had me in tears, heart pounding, and very upset.  I guess that's what you wanted.  Congrats!

Here's the bad news:  writing a letter to someone under the guise of an anonymous account is bad.  It's cowardly.  It's really kind of a rotten thing to do!  But probably the MOST serious thing is that you couched it in Christian terms under the cover of "I'm only saying this in Christian love".

Love?  Shall we?

From my favorite ESV translation of 1st Corinthians 13 -

4 Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant 
5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful;
6 it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. 
7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Love?  Love is GREAT stuff!  Love is full of hope and wants the best for people.  Love doesn't tear down.  Love endures and carries on and is kind.  Love doesn't hide in a foxhole and snipe people while wearing a disguise.

There was no Christian love in what you said.

And I'm not gonna "get over it".
Since you read my twitter account, you know a lot of my weaknesses, and decided to use them against me.  Guess what?  I'm a growing, wounded, working through it daughter of God!  I've had some hard times which I've shared.  I've had some harder ones that I can't bring myself to share.  And that's okay.  God knows these things, and HE alone is my judge.  Not you.  So while you may derive some fine pleasure from setting up a Kangaroo Court here with your anonymous comments, God sees that, too.  He gets to judge.  Not you, not me.  I don't know all of your sins, and I'm fine with that.  Because God is working on you, too.  Let Him speak to you...work through it!  It's what we all have to do.

So while you upset me yesterday, it wasn't forever.
I realized that I want to act in LOVE and not as a coward.
I want to be HONEST which I have been, and not fake.
I want to be GROWING and experience the PAIN of growing, not of sniping people for where they are.
I want to continue in the GOOD THINGS that God has given me, and now worry about other people so much.
Look at yourself.  Ask God to show you LOVE, because you need it!

To my regular readers:
I've come too far in my journey with God to be so upset by internet cowards.  They are everywhere, guys.  I realized yesterday how it terrible it must be to have a huge, painful secret that isn't allowable for discussion in social circles.

To be Christian and think you are gay.
To be suicidal.
To struggle with intense depression.
To have failed your family.
To have an eating disorder.
To injure yourself.

Boy, those are heavy things!  I've dealt with a few of them.  At times I felt I had no one to talk to except the (anonymous) internet.  And I *had* to be anonymous.  Because if anyone ever found out I struggled, I thought they would pile layer upon layer of heavy judgement on me and make it worse.  And I was right.  This blog so far has been about my struggles in my own life with the depression that comes from really going out on a limb in the performing arts...to really GO for it.  And it's hard.  And it's depressing.  And God has been faithful.

And I tried to write my honest feelings here.  And boy was I punished for it.

I know so many who struggle turn to anonymous blogs or Twitter accounts or social media as a way to let out their feelings and cry for help.  They don't want their families to know.  They don't want their churches or schools to know.

Isn't that sad?  These are the social structures which God has given us for support, and we are terrified to use them.  We fear judgement.  We fear someone finding out how sinful we really are.  I wish we could all see each other naked, in body and soul.  Then we'd see how ugly and disgusting and real we all are, how gross and terrible are our sins, and how we need Jesus desperately.

Maybe we'd be a little kinder to each other.

So here's my pledge;  I'm going to continue to be real and honest here.  I'm not going to be a coward.  I'm not going to tell you about my life as much, because I need to put up a boundary and a safeguard against jerks like the one who attacked me yesterday.  But I also need to share my thoughts and feelings.
Know that this is a safe place for you if you want to share.  I won't attack you.  I will try to offer love and support.  God knows I need it.

So, ANON,  nice try.  Your mission from Satan has failed (even though you probably didn't realize that is what it was).  I'm still here, and stronger than ever.  And Jesus is with me.  Better look elsewhere for your trolling adventures.  I'm here to stay.