home...

I am back in OKC for awhile, by awhile I mean no 2-3 weeks gone for about a month. Just a weekend here or there.

it's weird to come home after 2 weeks gone, again. It's good, just weird. Good to see my friend Matt, who graciously picked me up from the airport with a hug and carried my ridiculously heavy luggage to my door...good friend. Mostly good to see a friend from home, at home. Sweet to be welcomed with a smile that reminds me I have friends in OKC even though I have been gone most of the summer. Thank you sweet Matt.

I am off to read and watch some Boston Legal and fall asleep in my own bed.. after I clean the laundry off of it.

the ATL

*this pic will be explained in a moment....

a whole lot and not a lot going on right now. I would really like to be better at posting to this thing. So I thought I'd just go ahead...

I am in Atlanta for a few days with some really wonderful friends. Laughing a heck of a lot.

Discovered I am rubbish at Guitar Hero, actually it was Rock Band. I attempted the guitar and the drums and felt like a special needs kid. terrible. But I was almost awesome on the vocals, that's what the screen kept saying. ha! I think we need to invest in the wii at the dup.

anyways I am working/playing here at the sixstepsrecords / passion conference offices in GA. Great people, great place. I am looking forward to being back in the OKC soon, hope my friends remember me. heh heh

oh best thing in a while....

I was at a wal-mart here the other night desperate for some hair ties, and while we were checking out my friend Kelly found a abandoned note pad with a "list". the most hilarious thing ever. I will try and post a pic of the list because you would never believe it to be true.

Apparently it belonged to a male stripper his 'goals" list if you will.
The title of this list is "Top 20 things to make money at club" priceless.... there is only 15 things, maybe he was in line at wal-mart while finishing the list- too bad I am sure the last 5 were brilliant.

1.Confidence
2.Flirt
3.Dance Sexual
4.Sexier Outfits
5. Boxers
6.Stripper Pants
7.Have fun, laugh
8.Make my other dancers look good
9.Shut down the hotseats
10.Skate board tricks
11.Acrobatic tricks
12.Become the best undisputed dancer there
13.Be cute and cocky
14.Ex tenze pills
15.Get in sync with papi

Yes no kidding that's it friends, I think we could all learn something from those goals.
Now lets shut down the hotseats.

the least

I was apart of some meetings, teachings & discussions this weekend about the poor and I must say I feel a little undone, in the best way possible.

There is a group of people called Servants to Asia's Urban Poor (www.servantsasia.org) and I have a bit of a crush on them. They are all about incarnational ministry to the poor and the least.
To be with them and some of their team this weekend was quite an experience. I would say I feel my heart feels heavy, but its heavy only in the sense of being full.

I have a friend who went to Cambodia with Servants for about 7 weeks, and that inspired me to read the book 'Urban Halo' by Craig Greenfield, it is about their work in Cambodia.

I remember being in Chicago at the Hilton Garden Inn having the breakfast buffet with tears streaming down my face as I finished reading the book. Something in my soul was overwhelmed that people were "doing" missions like these guys.


This past weekend I was able to have some really good conversations with Craig and now have a killer reading list. I am about to plow through it with promises of more recommendations to come from him.

Craig his wife and kids are now in Vancouver living along side addicts and the the broken (or I should say the more visibly broken ones) in a communal house. Together with others they are unfolding what it looks like to do live the way they did in the slums of Cambodia in the West.
Which is something I have been tossing about in my head the last few years.

I don't necessarily feel I will be packing my bags for Jakarta, but i am asking God to expand my heart for the "least of these".

I don't want the poor to be on my "to do" list that I can check off every month.
Jesus called them 'blessed' and I want to know why.
I think that will involve simplifying my life and spending some time with the poor, learning from them, making space in my heart.

I am starting my reading adventures with a book I have owned for a few years but have not been brave enough to read- 'Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger' by Ronald Sider.
It's been around a long time I think my 1997 copy is the 5th edition.
I think its one of those that some church book stores would not carry. Not very consumer-driven church friendly if you know what I mean.

So here's to the further process of my un-doing. We will see how this goes...



other random news...

I just made a phone call to a midwife to chat about the process of becoming a midwife. I worked with midwifes in Texas years ago. I was helping with a crisis pregnancy home as a birthing coach- random I know, but I loved it. I love midwives they are pretty cool gals.
It's the one thing that has stuck in my spinning thoughts over the past 10 years when I think 'what do I want to be when I grow up?', so I think I will begin the process.

I love the idea that if I find myself with a third world country address, I could use the skills there as well.

Who said my business card can't say "Artist Liaison/Midwife" I will just have to plan my travel around births. heh

We will see what happens, it takes a boat load of book reading.
I am sure the guys will love me carrying birth book around on the road.... revenge has come!!
I think I will tell them I have to read aloud to retain the knowledge.

Who knows maybe I will be in Cambodia someday and get to help deliver something a beautiful as this...

Thanks Laura for sharing your pictures of Jakarta and Cambodia, they cause my heart to stutter...

especially hard days

i don't know that everyone has hard days- i think we do.

today was one for me.

sundays have been hard for me the last 6 months. i left a long relationship with a church that i was once in love with, i watched and felt it turn into something unhealthy and toxic and fought as long as i could until i had nothing left. maybe i left too late, i don't know. but it has left me feeling very out of socket on sundays.

i am sure it is because i have spent almost 33 years being at a church on sunday morning, so to abruptly stop this action feels a bit spinning. allowing myself space to figure out what church means not just what someone has told me it means is an odd feeling. let me say i love the church- as a whole- the body of Christ, but i am working out what it looks like for me to be a part of it, how to do that. i love a whole lot of people that are part of a/the church. i have always thrown myself in the middle, jumped in- off the high dive not really paying attention to check if there was water to break my dive. i will just say I have found some pools that have been drained. people with the best of intentions with what i choose to believe were at some level done in love, have cause a lot of bleeding out- not till the death mind you- but to the point where I have felt weak and spent with nothing left to offer.


slowly strength is returning to my heart. i have re-discovered the resiliency of my heart in the last few years. there is something to be said for truth creeping into our hearts and allowing it to be broken for awhile. feeling the tension of a heart being healed. i think i will be in that place for awhile. this side of heaven will break your heart if your paying attention...good thing the healing never stops.


but anyways, today is sunday, so i had that awkward 'i should be somewhere' feeling, all my regular people i breathe with were occupied with life, or at the place i used to be.

i like being out of town on sundays so i have an excuse for not being 'at church'. but when i am in town i try to fill it with brunch with a friend- no such luck today. so i drove around aimlessly, got some coffee and ended up at a movie- another great distraction place for me. I saw "Then She Found Me" and i loved it, it was a sweet surprise. was painfully real, funny, beautiful. Go see it - right now. I had never heard of it and it was one of those movies that spoke so sweetly to my heart that i just wanted to sit there and cry for all the right reasons. Movies sometimes do that to me- The Visitor did it to me a few weeks ago. but today was perfect timing. i waited till i got to my car till i cried- a lot less awkward for everyone I am sure. i am convinced that sometimes all i need sometimes is a good cry, it helps in unspeakably big ways. maybe that is my 'girl-ness' but i think i try to hold everything together all the time so no one will know how weak i am that it catches up with me and i finally let myself come undone into tears. i think jesus waits patiently for the moments where i let him hold me. i can't ever remember when i decided to try on my own to be strong, it does not last long. but it sure is sweet to find myself cuddled up close to jesus. it is so much easier to breath here. great place to cry and unravel everything i have knotted up with my fear and insecurities.


i can see beautiful things from here. i can see i have the best people a girl can have in her life. real friends that know my flaws even when i try to hide them. even the guys i work with are the protective big brothers that interfere in my life in all the right places and love me even when i mess everything up. i have been able to slowly connect my heart with a small group of people that are trying to 'do' church together and admit we really don't know how to do it all that well,but we try. my life is full of beauty. when the pain of living on this side of heaven is punching me in the stomach i still see the Kingdom of God here. it shows up when i hear the voice of a friend tell me the things jesus whispers to me. when we laugh until i can barely breathe at something ridiculous. when we can have a great dinner or a good glass of wine and just be together and be reminded that we are not alone and we are not crazy. that is a gift.

so i suppose my sundays can start off feeling empty, they don't end that way. and i am grateful.

first draft

Leighton, this is for you.
a beginning. I am just typing words at this point. but here goes.
I am sitting in the coffee shop I find myself in most days, checking email, sending email.
observing people. sometimes having lovely thoughts, sometimes not so lovely....you'll see.

I am flirting with a few books at the moment not really in a commitment with any of them...does that say something about me? hummmm. Currently in my life are...Jesus for President by Shane Claiborne- like him a lot. The Wild Birds:Short Stories by Wendall Berry- fantastic writer. I have only read his novels. I have some of his essay books but I am a bit intimidated by them, someday I will dive into them. Also attempting to go through The Artist's Way- Julia Cameron, has a lot of writing involved- ironic that I have a friend (that's you Leighton) who has been gently suggesting that i do this blog business and now i'm subjecting myself to writing assignments. We'll see how this unfolds.

"we will become a happy ending" is from a Page France song that caught my ear ... and I certainly hope it's true, but sometimes I look around and wonder how. I suppose knowing there is something bigger and more beautiful than my vivid thoughts can imagine gives me enough hope even in my questions. There is also those unspeakably beautiful moments in life that take my breath away and remind me that all of "this" tension, pain, joy, beauty, loss; it's good. It carves places of remembering. acknowledging our need, as well as what we have been given. I forget -a lot, but He is sweet about reminding me.

well. I will wrap up my first short post. I am having some people over for a Lost watch party/ mexican tacos / going away party, for a gal that I don't know but I will meet her tonight (i love that - kinda fun) bonus of having neighbors that like to be with people and love to have people over for dinner.

signing off...this is weird