Getting Things Done

Has anything ever been just sitting on your desk and you’ve been avoiding it? Sometimes purposefully and sometimes not?

Putting together a new audition book has been on my to do list for months now. The last month some legitimate things crowded out this objective: working overtime because I’m not in a financially great place for the holidays; my roommate getting married; and prepping last minute for a singing at church and at said wedding.

Afterwards however I found myself looking for other things to do instead. Procrastinating did not used to be my style. If I didn’t get something done I would be pretty upset.

Why the change, I wonder? Why did I suddenly not want to do the very thing I love the most.

I don’t like shopping. I will go to a large store (sometimes many) and spend a whole day scouring for some particular item and then come out exhausted and empty handed. The reason I hate shopping is my fear of disappointment after a long day of labor.

Much like my disgust for shopping, I realized before I even started procrastinating that I have a lot of emotions attached to auditioning or even finding the right music because I’ve become accustomed to disappointment.

When I get emotional about something I take a step back until I feel like I can jump into it.  This was not my idea. As someone who communes with the Triune God, I felt him beckoning me away again. I felt his jealousy for my heart.

In the process I began to rise above the tumultuous storm surrounding me. I recognized both the atmosphere of hopelessness that I was coming under and the age old lies I was believing about myself.

Lies:

This won’t work out

Things never work out for me

I don’t even know how to sing

I’ll never be good enough

What’s the point?

Any of this sound familiar? Today I finally felt the freedom and joy to go to Staples and purchase a new binder and fill it with new music. 

The best part is is that I spent hours on research and it actually paid off! I worked on the new songs and I am OBSESSED with them. I’ve never fallen so deeply in love with musical theatre as I have today. It was like being away from the one you love for months and then spending a day with them. It felt amazing.

What have you been putting off today? What is it that’s holding you back? Are they lies? How can you rise above the cloud of lies and into the truth?  What are some small steps you can take to get there today?

Worship Ministry - My Story - The Unfolding of God's Vision in Me

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again- when we hear the song of the Lord over our lives we can recognize the voice of the enemy as the discordant clang that it really is.

I grew up in the church.  I felt the presence of God from a young age and learned his voice.  Simultaneously I grew in my musical gifting.  I was always thrown into worship bands because I could sing.  In Junior High and High School I sang as my friend Brennan played for the 5^thand 6^thgraders and also in our youth group. In college I led worship for 1-5^thgrade at my church.

I grew up around musicians and worship leaders.  My best friend went on to play in “big church” at quite a young age (my church used to be a mega church). I was jealous but reconciled my jealousy with what I believed to be true that a) I wasn’t called to it and b) I wasn’t that great anyway.  I was going to be a theatre artist.  I was going to do musical theatre.  Ministry was just what I did for now: I served where I was needed.

I also watched as worship team ministry became a political thing.  It was a very closed group at my church.  I noticed my friends vying for attention to get into higher leadership positions.  I didn’t want any part of that.  I just sang my heart out and wrote songs to Jesus in the secret place. I sang the Scriptures.  I sang my prayers and sang whatever I heard God sing back to me.  No one taught me to do this.  It just overflowed from my heart.

Then in college I started attending a home group led by the amazing Sam Cerny.  He was preaching things that IHOP was preaching, things that spoke to my very core. Then he moved to Kansas City and started ministering with Lou Engle in the Call school of ministry.  I visited him with my friends from the group and remember after our first day in the prayer room the two of us just bursting at the seams talking to each other.  This is what I did in the secret place and they were doing it for the world to see!  I had to get back to that place where I finally felt I belonged.  I had to get to that place of God’s presence.

But I went back to California to finish my bachelors degree, another important goal to me.  My friend who had encountered God in KC also moved there and did the Call School that year.  I visited again at One Thing and declared that I was coming back. And I continued to serve the kids at my church leading them in worship.

Fast forward a few years.  God told me to move to New York so I packed my Toyota Camry and drove to New York where I didn’t know anyone and thought I was going to start working in the theatre instantaneously. Instead I started attending this tiny praying church on the second floor of a building downtown.  I didn’t want to do anymore ministry.  I thought God had called me out of ministry.

Then the young worship pastor heard me singing in the audience and told me to join the worship team.  I said no.  Then I came back later and told him yes. As I started to sing on the team I fell in love. I was doing what I did in the secret place again: singing what I heard from Heaven.  People were hearing my songs and getting blessed.  And the presence of God was falling.  I felt Him strongly in that place.

But I wasn’t a worship leader.  Worship leaders were musicians.  Worship leaders were crazy detail oriented like my best friend growing up who played in “big church.”  I was just singer who loved to sing songs to the Lord and played my guitar very poorly just to do that.

Then Bill our pastor came up to me multiple times and told me “You’re called to this.  You can lead with just your voice.  This is what you’re supposed to be doing.” He celebrated my giftings and told me what they meant. I half believed him. People had given me prophetic words about being a worship leader before and I just laughed.  After all, I grew up in a church of prophetic people and no onesaid I was a worship leader. No one asked me to lead ever. I was just the girl who could sing that worship leaders threw into their teams to sound good.  At least that’s what I thought.

Then I started connecting dots.  I had the lowest self worth. I had actually spent a year in KC just having identity spoken over me. I really didn’t believe I was good at anything and that people just put up with me rather than inviting me to be anywhere.

As I look back at my story my pastors are the biggest reason I have stuck with this vision of worship leading.  I went through what I call my David season where I just really wanted to be loved and was in a relationship I shouldn’t have been in. During that season my pastor offered to pay for me to go to a worship training school in California.  I turned her down.

The next year God apprehended me as I surrendered to him and there were some key moments involving him telling me who I am called to be and giving me a choice to walk down the path I was on away from that call or give up that path and continue toward what he had for me.   I was obedient to the call and went to Bethel's Worshipu.  It changed my entire life.  It was a kairos moment.  I knew the calling on my life was bigger than a church, a ministry, or a mandate to the lost.  I was called to release the presence of God in every way and sound was my primary way. 

Even at that moment I was not leading worship at my church.  But I started to step into it.  I asked to lead a worship set on Tuesdays during the day where one person consistently showed up.  I got connected to some ministries I loved outside of my church and lead worship for them. I watched as demonic people were set free.  I began what I saw God was doing before anyone “appointed” me to a position.

I am grateful that I am in a ministry where I can choose to step into who I am because my leaders saw it before I even knew or wanted to know it existed.  My pastor said something to me that I’ll never forget when I told him how I was feeling a little lost in the shuffle of changes at our church.  He said, “I want you to have a place at the table.”  

I am a part of loving family that wants to see me grow.  I’m not in a corporate setting where I am just here to do my part and leave without growth, without relationship.  I have people who cared enough to come after me and let me know that I’m not forgotten.

We have to know through the changing seasons who we are.  We have to hear what God is saying over our lives.  I just recently had to get alone with God until I heard him speak again over me because I thought HE had forgotten me. When I heard his voice everything else became unimportant.  I knew who I was.  No one else can change that.  They can promote you or demote you but you know who are you.

Who you are is not tied to a ministry or building.  You do not have to be the worship leader at your church to be a worship leader.  You do not have to have a title or ministry to minister.  Who you are is so much greater than that (and this can apply to everything we are called to i.e. dentist, hair dresser, actor, singer, pastor). At the end of the day it’s about surrendering to God everything you have and taking up his yoke. His vision will carry you through the season of drought.  His love will let you know you are not forgotten.

My Life is Not a Movie

I was contemplating us seeing our lives as movies yesterday.  It started with a benign question someone asked me earlier in the day: “If your life was a movie what would the title be and who would play you?”

What interested me most about this question was my internal, immediate response.  I wanted desperately for it to be an epic romantic film.  Then looked around me at my reality and thought for a little while.  I wanted the movie to reflect reality and not a fictional fantasy I held about myself. That fascinated me. That pull back moment.

Then my friend had a moment where he ran into the guy he’s interested in on the train.  He is similar to me and was fascinated by the epic way in which it all played out.  To him the drama of the moment confirmed a lot of his feelings about the moment.  He felt like he was in a movie.  I know exactly how he feels. I ran into my crush once on a subway platform and couldn’t stop thinking about it for days.

I don’t watch a lot of romantic movies for this very reason.  I start comparing my life with what I see.  I recognize this as not a good thing.  It means I’m not willing to face my own reality. I know in extreme cases of this (cases caused by trauma) people can go insane. They just can’t cope with reality. So I know when I am going to that place of watching a romantic comedy, usually it’s because I’m looking for a place to escape.

(Side note: I find it fascinating since I’ve been spending a lot of time with men lately that their place of escape is often physical.  They will just leave a place. But for me I find my escape is inside my brain to a fictional story about my life that I am creating).

Yet last night I felt strongly compelled to watch When Harry Met Sally.  I was nervous because for a very long time I was in a friendship and I wanted it to be more than a friendship (and that’s literally the entire premise of the movie is falling in love with your best friend).  My nervousness came from a fear that maybe somewhere deep down inside I was lying to myself about being in a good place.

Thankfully though I am in a good place I discovered when I watched it.  I didn’t compare my life to the movie.  I recognized the difference instantly.  I am in a place of solid contentment where my imagination is not going to sway me from genuine joy with what is in front of me.

So, how did I get here?  How do I tell my friends how to not live in escapism and create a fictional movie about their lives that isn’t real?  What is the key to being present, not letting fantasy take over? I am going to address this as practically as I can from two standpoints 1) a single person 2) in a relationship/or attracted to someone.

Being single:

It is important in any season of life to live with healthy emotional boundaries. I have realized over the last season that it is quite easy to use other people to meet my needs.  That’s not to say that we weren’t created for community.  But it has to be a two way street.  I am very aware now when I try to “make things happen” with people who are not interested in meeting my needs.  I am also aware that ¾ of the time God is actually the one who is supposed to be meeting my needs, not people at all.  I’m growing in this awareness but when I see that a boundary needs to be set I set it.

Practice thankfulness. Sometimes that’s actually dwelling on the past a little.  Taking yourself down memory lane and showing yourself how you’ve grown.  I took myself on a date to Williambsurg on Saturday after I had a doctor’s appointment in Brooklyn.  I live in Queens so I don’t get to Brooklyn much). I have grown. I felt at home and alive there like I didn’t even feel when I lived there.

 Furthermore, I was so surprised by how happy I felt on my own enjoying the things around me. Why was I so surprised? Because I’ve spent so much of my life believing that I had to be on a  date with someone else to enjoy myself.  I clung to friendships to make me feel happy. Now I’m realizing my happiness comes from within.

In a relationship (before marriage)/liking someone:

Emotional boundaries are important here too! You cannot treat a person you like the same way you treat everyone else. Your heart needs to be protected around them. Fantasy and obsession go hand in hand.  Our culture actually believes this is healthy probably because it’s so easy to be infatuated with the person you’re attracted to.  It isn’t though because in that state you can miss important flaws that you need to consider in order for the relationship to continue to grow.

Physical boundaries in a relationship are super crucial.  I could talk a lot about this.  Suffice to say, it’s easier to fall into that fantasy trap when you’re physically being intimate with someone.  The physical hormones released are actually supposed to bond you in this way, past all rational thinking.  Sex was created for the long hull of marriage to keep us in love. However, if you jump the gun on the physical before it’s time and season you can push yourself into fake movie so quickly and your emotions and brain have to play catch up to the fastest moving train on earth.

Again, I think thankfulness I think is the glue in that holds all of this together. Being thankful for where you’re at and not trying to move ahead or run away from the exact moment in time you are in with the other person. The key here is practicing ongoing contentment. If your partner is not ready to move on to the next level and you are, that is God’s grace for you to grapple with it. Thank him for where you’re at with your partner and surrender your desire for more.  

Living a fantasy may feel good in the moment.  But honestly there's so much that's real that you can miss when you escape to your perfect movie life.  If you don't know how to get out these cycles of fantasy, take a break from the culture of fantasy (romantic comedies, books, or even porn) and practice thankfulness. Live your life from a place of happiness that comes from knowing you are content with your reality.  I promise you it is possible.

Orphans

I was walking to work in my neighborhood when I saw a young teenager sitting on a house stoop with his arms folded over his knees and his head in his arms.  I noted as I walked that something wasn’t right. My heart started doing cartwheels. Everything in me wanted to stop and ask him if he was ok but I told my heart no.

I went to work (granted I was probably only gone thirty minutes because my work didn’t end up needing me), came back and he was in the same position.  The opportunity to do something was still there!  But my New York fear of man crept over me and instead of stopping this time, I tried to bury the feeling and kept walking.

I thought and thought about this incident as it bothered me.  How many times does my compassion prompt me to do something but I get scared because it’s awkward or it’s messy?  For years I was overwhelmed by the amount of times I felt the need to stop and I thought, “that can’t be God.” Well meaning Christians even helped me justify my lack of responsibility by saying, “You can’t stop for everyone” or “you need to be prompted by the Holy Spirit.”

Yet what does being prompted by the Holy Spirit even look like?  I’ve been meditating on what perfect union with Christ looks like and it occurred to me that when you become one with someone their desires are suddenly your desires.  You want what they want.

The Bible does not say that a dove descended on Jesus and told him to heal the sick.  No, it says: “When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them and healed their sick.” (Matthew 14:14).

It occurred to me that if I saw a child without it’s mother and in distress I wouldn’t even think before stopping to say something.  Why was this older child no different?  The startling amount of dysfunctional family homes means a large percentage of the population are in fact in distress without a mother to turn to.  The world is full of orphans.

James states, “Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphansand widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world” (James 1:27).

We are supposed to follow our compassion and we are supposed to look after the ones that are in distress.  It’s no surprise to me that James 5:11 points out, “the Lord is full of compassion and mercy.” It’s who he is!  Therefore it is who we are called to be.

I encourage you to do a word search on compassion in the Bible.

One of the verses that stuck out to me after thinking about orphans and how this young man was like an orphan was this: “When he [Jesus] saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd” (Mat 9:36).

Paul explains what I have been thinking about well when he says, “Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind.  Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others” (Phil 2:1-4)

As I’m writing I’m weeping. Weeping for this generation of motherless and fatherless children—sheep without a shepherd.  I’m weeping because I am acting like one of them, too scared to rise up in love and defend them.  Yet I know it’s never too late to try.

Emotional Healing - My Journey with getting help

Recently God showed me how he takes us out of our ordinary routines to expose what's really in our hearts.

When Jesus went outside of his home to the desert, that's when Satan appeared.  Similarly, Jesus said of Peter, "Satan has asked to sift you. But I have prayed for you."  Further back, Satan challenges God that Job only loves God because everything is going right in his life. So God tells Satan to test Job's faith in God.  Satan takes everything away from Job and Job chooses God at the end of the day.  This story is repeated over and over again in the Bible.

Recently I was taken out of my normal routine (literally expelled from my home). I had to confront lonliness (my biggest fruit of the flesh.  You know, because we have fruit of the spirit we also have fruit of the flesh).  I realized there are roots of rejection and fear that have been lurking in my heart all along.

Over a long period of time (I'm talking years) I had felt like I saw some unhealthy patterns in my life that I needed help breaking.  But shame and embarressment warred against my need.  There was so much stigma around getting help that I justified not doing it.  Even saying that I have patterns makes me desperately want to clarify that I'm not a sex or porn addict.  I find this tendency proves my point even more.  I am ashamed, terrified of other people knowing "my stuff" and I mask it all with that "I've got it all together" pride.

Furthermore,  I thought because I had gained victory on my own through time in other areas that these fruits would just go away on their own or at least if I declared truth over them long enough I'd see breakthrough.  I even justified my ignoring help with the fact that I was in "Holy Spirit Academy."  I truly believed at one point because I was going through such a beautiful season of feeling the presence of the Lord that I had it all together.  It's true, his love enveloped me in such a special way in that season.  Then something would happen and no matter how much I declared, I'd still get entanged in lies from one trigger.

Let me just give a quick side note.  Yes, it's important to bind and loose and declare and repent.  But sometimes you have to physically step away from a situation and put some boundaries in place to help you.  This is especally true for addicts!  When Potipher's wife came on to Joseph he didn't just stand there and say "No." He actually physically ran away!  Sometimes you're putting yourself in unwise, compromising positions and overspiritualizing when you should find people to help you stop what you're doing and go in the opposite direction. (I had a teacher who used to say "Get out of the stupid room!")

Ok, I'm going to go here for a minute.  There's a whole "spiritual" practice that tells you to focus on the good and the bad will just, I don't know, melt away I guess. And there is some truth to this.  After all, we are to think on whatever is true, whatever is pure, and whatever is lovely. However, it's irrational and totally impractical to ignore a gaping emotinal wound caused by trauma. It's like placing a bandaid on something that needs stitches.  We are not actually dealing with the problem.

So now I'm out in desert, by myself, getting the help I need, does that mean I'm a terrible person? Or worse, does God want to watch me fail in front of others?

Back to Jesus' 40 days in the desert, Satan asked essentially, “if you strip everything away, are you really who you say you are?”

Jesus responded, “yes. I am.”

God didn't take Jesus out to the desert because he wanted to watch him fail.  He took him out there so that his identity would rise to the challenge.
 "And have you completely forgotten this word of encouragement that addresses you as a father addresses his son? It says,“My son, do not make light of the Lord’s discipline,    and do not lose heart when he rebukes you,6 because the Lord disciplines the one he loves,    and he chastens everyone he accepts as his son.”[a]7 Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as his children. For what children are not disciplined by their father?" (Hebrews 12:5-7).

I guess I did forget that God is a gentle father, correcting to bring healing, not condemnation and shame.  He does it because he loves me not because he hates me.  My fear of getting help probably stemmed from a wrong God picture.  My earthly father was hard on me.  With an exasperated tone he would say, "When will you learn?" But my God Is not like that.  He's not exasperated by my cycles of self hatred and intense lonliness.

God is after a whole, victorious you. And he will use anything to get you there. He loves you and his heart is not to condemn. Don’t let anything keep you from the victory he has for you.

Facing the Music: My Brand Of Crazy A Review Of Crazy Ex Girlfriend Season 3

In seasons 1 and 2 Rebecca Bunch swings on that crazy pendulum between funny and psychotic with a lighthearted ease.  Of course you cringe as she does weird stuff and develops (normal TV) co-dependent relationships. The plot develops rather linear, her single focus is Josh Chan and her underlying issues surround her mother and the fact that she refuses to address her underlying issues.

Season 3 makes a few dramatic changes that result in Rebecca Bunch no longer leaning on her friends in unhealthy ways but actually learning to independently sort out her issues. There are a few things I appreciate about this season.

I realized the reason I relate to Rebecca is because she’s my brand of crazy. Some people create drama about work or thrive away from drama. I have always created drama based on the romance. As Rebecca navigates what it’s like inside a relationship and outside of one in a more healthier space we get songs like the one where she imagines an Asexual altruistic universe. Since mental health is about balance its fun to watch her to navigate between extremes to where she finds her happy medium with the help she is finally seeking for herself.

One thing that is small but hugely stands out is how there’s an underlying shift to her conversations with people. In fact, the whole cast seems to have graduated from Middle School antics to interacting in kinder, more healthier tones.

One thing that the author Rachel Bloom addresses is the fear of failure.  I didn’t like how they dealt with that in the episode where her therapist gives her a star. Rebecca wants to impress him with how good she’s doing right off the bat. He challenges her to be normal and then treats her bad decisions as good ones just because she’s not concerned with her performance.  But I loved her conversation with her new old therapist, Dr. Copian, who tells her that it is ok for her to want intimacy, which she fears because of her failures

This is also when we are dealing with her crazy obsessions. She doesn’t think she can separate relationships from obsession. For example, the T-shirt scene. I absolutely died laughing when you see her smelling her boyfriend’s shirt and then she’s in therapy about her obsession and we realize she is wearing his shirt. The obsession continues but she is aware of it and realizes there are ways to avoid it.

I realized as I watched this show what has been profoundly missed in my TV watching experience- ethics. It seems these days that edgier and edgier is what flies. But this season in particular Rebecca has an affair and is forced to confront how she is hurting others and herself as she talks to Paula. Paula was cheated on last season and so her reaction to the affair is moving.

One of the themes throughout the show (both blatant and less obvious) is the fact that we will do anything to avoid having hard conversations. The season starts out with Josh Chan bailing their relationship and becoming a priest because he doesn’t want to tell Rebecca he doesn’t love her. Similarly Rebecca continues to have a difficult time confessing her own failures. Hilariously she calls a business meeting and hands everyone she has wronged a memo with all of her grievances they didn’t know about.

I love the challenging of wrong mindsets this season, especially the victim mentality. By the end of the season she has to face many lies. She has to live with guilt and shame and take responsibility for the things she’s done to hurt others.

I know some people have commented that this season the music isn’t as great, it’s too dark, and too dirty.  I want to address those things.

I think Rachel Bloom is the first prime time television show actually head-on addressing these issues in a very real way. The lack of focus on the music doesn’t bother me because it’s not as needed this season. The metaphors are still there and there’s still color and flare throughout the songs. But the cheesy shortness of the musical numbers offsets the complex dialogue and plot throughout quite nicely.

I think I already addressed it but the darkness in my opinion is so necessary. Everything in the first two seasons was taking her to ridiculous comedic extremes. This season we finally get to see where endless cycles of shame and not getting help ultimately lead to.  As I mentioned before, there’s a real theme of taking responsibility for your actions. I applaud Rachel Bloom for navigating this tricky subject so well.

I did have a hard time with how much sex was in this season but I don’t think it’s because there was less in other seasons. Certainly not season 2. She slept with a lot of people in season 2.

Of course I do think overall this season had a lot of songs about sex. My personal favorite was the song about the dude who thought he was sexually pleasing his wife and discovered he wasn’t. I can see how this can be too much for some people. And I do think she went a little far in the song “the very first penis I saw.” But if you’re going to be refreshingly honest about other things like “the miracle of birth” I guess talking about the first penis you saw makes total sense. Also, remember that these songs are things going on in Rebecca Bunch’s mind. Don’t pretend that you don’t have similar fantasies (perhaps less musical).

I think I was bothered by the constant unhealthy sex with Nathaniel. I do think one could argue that this was a great way of showing that relationships built on sex alone are not good relationships. Although I’m not sure she argued that well either.

Overall, I highly recommend the third season of Crazy Ex Girlfriend.  Owning up to our own emotional instability is rough. I’m thankful that this show gives me an outlet to do so.

Why I struggle with the concept of “Alpha Male”

“You’re so insecure that you have to compare yourself to an ape to show what a great leader you are” I remember thinking about a certain man in my life.

The term “Alpha Male” I thought was just a man-made term and also a trigger for me and I should dismiss it. Why?  Two men in my life who were interested in me and knew about the other one both told me they were Alpha males and that the other guy was not. So my take away was not “Oh this is an interesting concept of science.” It was what many women think on occasion: “Men are stupid.”

However, after 2 years of thought, the reality is the concept of the “Alpha Male” still bothers me.  At the time I was clearly interested in science and the world because I was dating this guy who wasn’t a believer and he fascinated me.  Since then the separation in the Bible between the wisdom of man and the wisdom of God has become so clear to me. This is for another blog but, interestingly, I found that the wisdom of man without the wisdom of God is associated with pride, which leads to all on ungodliness.

For my problem with the term “Alpha Male” I will start with Romans 1.  I’ll quote a section:  ^“Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles” (vs. 22-23, italics added).

You have all these men who are studying creatures that are successful in their coalitions and so they are looking at these creatures, studying them and saying creating 5 steps to becoming the man on top.

I do think part of that isn’t evil.  It’s in the way men are built.  Men do love to strategize more than women I think.  They are thinkers primarily and they want to solve the world’s issues through 5 step programs. 

The Bible also teaches us that we should want to influence others. We were created to rule and reign! And I get it, all of us are insecure about what were created to do.  We follow 5 step or 10 step programs because we feel like we don’t know what the heck we are doing.  We were born into a broken world and we feel like we need to fix it and the surest way is to learn from example.

Yet the intention behind this Alpha Male concept always bothered me.  I felt men were somehow manipulating “the system”. A man shouldn’t just comfort a girl because he wants to sleep with her.  He should comfort her because that is who he was created to be. No hidden agenda.  Women trust men who love without agenda.

I think it’s about the intention of the heart.  We were built to reign in partnership with God. Jesus was the image of the invisible God and we were created in his image. He is the ultimate influencer.

The audacity that we think we can be successful influencers if we follow the pattern of apes is what I think is leading our generation astray.  By God and for God all things were created.  We can learn some things from his creation.  But if we create entire methodologies of influence out of our observation of apes, what does that say about us as a culture? We think of ourselves as no more than apes?  From an evolutionary perspective that doesn’t even make sense (and I’m not even an evolutionist!) because we should have massively evolved since the time that sex was more important to man than anything else.

This is one of the reasons I have a really hard time talking to pre-believers about the gospel. Without the Holy Spirit, it doesn’t make sense.  You can say the same thing about the world we live in. Without the Holy Spirit, it doesn’t make sense.

This other verse keeps coming to mind as I think about this: “But the kingdoms of this world have become the kingdom of our God.”  God already gave us the 5 step guidebook to being a man and it wasn’t patterned after apes.  He has no hidden agenda.  He’s not a man that he should lie.  You want to be Alpha? “Seek first his kingdom.”

Nostalgia for 20 Skillman Brooklyn

I knew I would be going to pick the child I nanny up from a park this afternoon. I knew the park well because I actually lived a few blocks away for a year when I first moved to the city.

What I didn’t know was how I was going to react emotionally to being there again. I walked down the subway platform with a sudden rush of emotion. It was like I had just seen my ex. Only it was a subway platform! Then, as I neared the exit to the street, knowing the familiar views I would see, I was gripped with a sudden excitement that was almost like trepidation.

I rounded the corner behind a wall of construction to see the local bar across the street from me looking untouched since I left it, save a nice new coat of paint on the wall outside with beautiful writing scrolling across it. I could’ve kept walking to my destination but something stayed me: My old apartment was calling me.

I remember when I first moved there, in the dead of winter, there was vacant lot across the street from my door.  A homeless man had set up camp there. Now as I peered across the street, an apartment building stood towering over me, just above the BQE. I wonder what happened to the man.

The door with the ugly green awning was unchanged!  I was amazed and gratified by this.  I was also grateful that I did not have access to the inside. I knew I would be upset with the changes in the rooms.  Next to door however now stands a restaurant that used to be boarded up and unused.  It seems pleasant.

It continues to baffle me how many emotions are attached to the place I lived in not 4 years ago. I lived there with my roommates Michelle and David, who I recall also underwent many changes in that apartment. Many pivotal things occurred in my life during that time.

I experienced grief after death on a personal level for the first time.  My parents phoned me to inform me that my childhood cat Pepper had passed away.  I also experienced the very sudden death of my grandfather.  I remember looking in the bathroom mirror and breaking down one morning as I thought about how unfair it was that he was gone.  My roommate David was home that day. I remember him offering me alcohol but it wasn’t to get drunk. It was his favorite kind.  I felt as though he was sharing something very special with me. I felt cared for.

I experienced my first taste of romance where the guy actually had the intention of pursuing me.  Up until that time I had only been interested in best friends who ended up disappearing from my life. But as we walked up Kent to the water both of us began to fill this unspoken space between us.  I filled it with words. I was nervous and didn’t stop talking. He listened. It meant the world to me.

I smile when I think of that childlike flirtation and how terrified we were of how we felt. I remember the beginning and ending as though they transpired in one day.  They may have as well since he left Williamsburg overseas within a few days of our sudden realization.  That was part of the drama of the romance: knowing I may never see him again forced me to reconcile with myself that I might actually miss him more than I first had thought I would.

I made my friends at my church who were neighbors in Williamsburg.  I spent a lot of time with Jensen and his roommates at their apartment.  I would come over and play Settlers of Catan.  David (different David) had me over for tea a few times (he made the best chai!).  That also felt like an end and a beginning as Jensen and Amy began to date, Samuel moved out, and David moved in, and then Jensen moved out and married Amy, and finally David moved. So many quick hellos and goodbyes.

Though many of my favorite memories were not the crazy, life changing events.  It was the day-to-day things that became so normal that I truly cherish.  I remember David used to always leave his boots by the door.  When he moved out, I missed his boots. Michelle and I would have these deep emotional conversations in the kitchen (one of us would cry) that always led both of us back to our Creator in the midst of the emotional turmoil we were experiencing. I remember I had bars on my windows so I had to sleep with my door open in the summer so that I could feel the AC unit from the kitchen. I remember rock music blaring and art spread out on the kitchen table as David worked.

I remember meeting my roommate David for the first time.  I had never lived with a boy other than my father.  I was afraid that I might develop feelings for him.  He somehow passed my litmus test, which is kind of hilarious now that I think back on it.  I met him at a place that had those old school arcade games and he was playing one.  I was annoyed because he was so engrossed in the game that he didn’t even look up at me.  And then I thought, “He’s a nerd!  Perfect!”  He’s actually way more relational than what I first perceived.  What I came to learn was that David is one of the kindest and most generous men I’ve ever met.

I used to come home and talk his ear off.  He is 5 years older than me so he was actually the age I am now when he gave me advice.  I thought he was so wise.  He was an artist and I admired his work.  I’m a feisty achiever who wants all my dreams to just happen at once so you can imagine how I was at 23.  I was upset that I had so many passions and they didn’t all fit into one pattern. He was the first person to point out that it didn’t have to make sense to me all at once.  

I remember telling him all about the men who I was so confused were interested in me and how it terrified me and asking him all about his dating life.  He took it like a champ though I’m sure his ears were bleeding. It took me many years to learn how to keep my thoughts to myself. I’m still working on it.

It’s just like God to move me to a part of Brooklyn that developed the most rapidly in a short period of time. It’s like a metaphor for what happened to me in that apartment and in New York. I was thinking that as I walked down Union toward McCaren Park. All of these buildings I didn’t recognize had sprouted so quickly almost like the growth I’ve seen in myself since that special year.

I realized laughingly to myself that the park that I used to run in once in a while was actually much bigger than I had originally thought. I didn’t traverse very far in my little area of comfort. I was new to the city and didn’t know anyone. The L entrance being right outside my door meant that I didn’t really have to get to know the city. I just went to work, church, and home.

I think part of my fear of exploring was that at the time I didn’t have a smart phone. I don’t think smart phones were super rare at the time. I was just happy with my flip phone. I would go to mapquest and draw out maps of where I was going and that’s how I would get around. I had gotten lost many times. I would get very overwhelmed.

Michelle and David moved out before me. David moving out was the hardest on me.  So much of my experience of that apartment was the two of us discussing who could be loud when and at what times since we both worked part time jobs at restaurants and I love to sing.  I tried to adapt to my first roommates’ disappearance for a while. But I was still young and not ready to be on a lease.  A subletter moved in for a few months and never paid me for utilities and apparently skipped town without paying rent (my landlord wasn’t on top of things). One thing led to another and I moved to Chelsea (briefly) before finding a home in Astoria only year after I had arrived in Williamsburg.

I arrived at the park and picked my child up from skateboarding camp.  I look back toward Union Ave and tell him, “I used to live a little ways down that street when I first move to the city.” He shrugs this new piece of information off like an uncomfortable sweater.  I decide to keep my thoughts to myself.  Until I share them with you, dear reader. Remember I’m still learning.

I wish we all were naked

I wish we all were naked.

I had just finished leading worship at my church for a prayer set and was in the bathroom.  I woman there commented on my clothing.  Suddenly I was filled with shame. I knew I shouldn't have worn this shirt! I'm a leader! It was a hand-me down from my roommate and felt revealing when I put it on but had protested that I needed something to wear in this heat and I had worn my more modest brown tank top 3 times already this week.  Though she was right I was filled with frustration.  I became even more frustrated when I went to the store to look for new clothes and found nothing for this hot weather that wasn't revealing.

Her comment started me on this long thinking train this week.  I often think about the topic of modesty and get frustrated.  I'm usually just frustrated at the Devil because I see this process: one person accuses another person of being immodest and it creates shame.  Or a guy stumbles because a girl is immodest and it creates shame.  This whole thing wouldn't be a thing if sin hadn't entered the picture!

I've written a blog about this before but I think I have a little more insight into it now.  For women, we already innately are born with body shame.  Part of the culture of "baring it all" is actually from a healthy place of being ok with our bodies.  How are we going to be comfortable with our husbands if we can't look at ourselves in the mirror naked and like what we see?

When that woman spoke to me I was kind of astounded that I had known when I picked out the shirt that it was too revealing but I frankly didn't care.  I cared more about my comfort in that moment.  To me that shows me a few things.

For starters, I've come a long way.  I used to use modesty as a way of hiding.  I was super ashamed of my body.  Now, it doesn't seem to bother me anymore.  I'm not concerned about what other people think.  I think that's a good thing.

Because of this though I've become less cauteous, less caring for the people around me.  Think about it, I cared more about my comfort (It's freaking hot!) than the men whose souls I was leading into worship.  I cared more about me.

The Bible teaches us that the way of the gospel is the way of the cross.  I need to surrender my comfort sometimes so that other people can be honored and cared for.  That's the thing about this discussion about modesty that I often see flare up.  We are so quick to defend our own cause and blame the other person. Yet we fail to see it from their perspective.  If we truly put ourselves in one another shoes we would see that our actions affect other people.

So I realized my wardrobe needs some inner healing and decided to go shopping.

But I hate shopping.  I'm not fashionable.  I don't know what to pick out.  I don't know where to go.  I don't like anything I see. And I think everything is too expensive for me.  I usually come home after shopping with nothing to show for it and 4 hours wasted.

All this to say that it bugs the crap out of me that we live in a fallen world.  I actually read a lot of things by nudists because I'm so fascinated by the fact that these people are attempting to live out the garden of Eden outside of Eden.  How do you do that?  How do you honor other people and not live in shame at the same time?  I think these questions can be further sorted out with the One who put us in the garden to begin with.

You’re your own worst nightmare and your dream come true

I think I’ve struggled as most of us performers and humans do with this insecurity that I’m not good enough. I loved singing. I knew I wanted to do it. But I had to come out of my bedroom in order to be seen and heard. That was scary.

Looking back on these years since I decided to be a performer and actually jumping onto the wild ride of getting there I see so many years of not knowing my worth holding me back.

As a performer you have to be audacious. You have to know that that there is something inside of you that is so unique that it is worth presenting to the world. You can’t copy. You must be an original.

I’m going to go into more depth about this specifically in my relationship to romance in my cabaret (shameless plug) so I won’t share that side of it.  But the change began to occur in me interestingly not when I practiced more, not when I went to more expensive classes, or met more agents and casting directors (though all of these certainly didn’t deter from what was happening inside).

I won’t lie and say this happened all at once either. I think in life most lessons we learn are subconscious and come in cycles until we fully get it. So I certainly couldn’t write the how-to confidence Manuel for performers. This process has taken years.

There are a couple moments though that I can point to that have helped me on this journey. The first was the experience of sort of losing my way to find it again. Being so NOT myself showed me how much I actually liked and missed the version of me I had spent my whole life hiding from.

It happened when I hit rock bottom. I am a naturally happy person and also love to please people. Depression took me to this place of apathy where I didn’t care what people thought of me.  The best way I can think to describe this experience was like I looked at people’s reactions to me separate from myself.  Removed from my emotions about myself I saw myself from the perspective of the audience, the agents, the casting directors, and my friends.  

I discovered that instead of judging me, they were cheering me on. Instead of comparing me they were composing me. However I had defined myself was all that they could see. I wouldn’t cast me either! I lacked all confidence because I didn’t like myself. Strangely though when I was raw- completely unashamed of who I was because of depression- I was the most captivating.

The other was last year when I was in the process of discovering myself and rebuilding, I started to see myself through the eyes of the One who loves me most. I was totally outside of my normal routine at a school in the middle of nowhere learning about Jesus and songwriting. I fell in love with this man Jesus again.

I so fully fell in love with him that I fell in love with the people he loved. I no longer was angry or frustrated with Christian men as I had been for a long time. I was no longer angry and frustrated at myself as I had been for a long time. I was complete. I was whole. Lacking in nothing.

This is an ongoing process. I feel like this is the journey of self-discovery I am always on! It wouldn’t be life if you weren’t discovering more of who you are and who you were meant to be. But you are only a nightmare to yourself if you hide from you. Open up. Let others see your true colors. I promise it’s not as scary as you thought. The rewards are beyond measure. Only then can you find your dream you.

Perhaps a little Philosophical Poetry

do you, sea, the see and me?
we. we are
to others simply mystery
to me it is
do you see the sea in me?
I. am
to others naught
to me ought
do you see the sea and me?
we. we are


The sea
is calling me
She asks me to come
to hear her story
Amidst the peace
of piles of sand
she takes my hand
and we run there
we play there
There.
There there is a high
a crested bow
stretches my heart out
then we sink
deep into the blackness
thick with seawed
choking me
I swim further out
She cradles me
I float
a bubble in time
to a new horizon


The wave sweeps me
off my feet
leaves me stranded
without life jacket
beaten to sandbar
rocketed to a shore
i come up spluttering
for air
sweet air
refuse to be dragged
back to the fury
I pick up seashells
line my path out of
the pool of graves
No lifeguard on duty
To witness
my emergence
from the emergent
Sea
So I scoop myself up
Look around me
no one in sight
Yet the waves
sound distant to me now
as I embark
to a new horizon

Feminism and Personal Triggers

Whenever people casually bring up the word “feminism” in Christian conservative circles I have been a part of I still often hear people react to the word negatively.  This concerned and aggravated me for a while.  However, I really believe it is both a matter of misinformation (which I will not address here) and a misunderstanding of representations of feminism through popular culture based on personal feelings.

When we talk about ideals and values I think it’s important to come from a healed and whole perspective.  Instead of, “I don’t personally like how this is.”  It should be, “This doesn’t line up with the kingdom of God.”  Of course, we only see the world through our lens so sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference.  Also, the more we become like Christ it actually should be harder to tell the difference in some respects.

To explain this better, let me say that I grew up in a home where I reacted to ways I felt like my mother was not treated as an equal. It angered me immensely and I saw it as my duty to correct the wrong that was done. I may not have acted in a very honoring way because it bothered me so much. It bothered me so much that, to this day, I am still overwhelmed by men who cook and clean and do it gladly. 

That was a bitter root.  I was personally judging my father against my ideals and he fell short of what I thought a man should be.  As a result, any time a guy ever acted similarly to that I would be triggered and react to what I regarded as (I didn’t realize at the time the terminology) anti-feminism or patriarchy.

I remember post college my best friend and I and another guy we graduated with were running a theatre camp in the community of Azusa.  Basically each of us were in charge of an age group and we were devising a culminating “show” together of original theatre because Marc (the guy) and I had discovered this incredible devising process in our Theatre Education class.  The show was going to be based on Peter Pan.

As we sat talking about how we wanted the storyline to loosely go I remember very adamantly saying, “Why does it have to be the typical story of the guy saving the girl?  Why can’t it be the other way around?”  I must have thought I was being subversive in my story-telling but clearly there was some baggage there because even my best friend commented, “Woah, Jennie.” Something had triggered me and I was being reactionary.

So, now I’m circling back to my conversations with conservative Christians who see feminism as negative because women are so angry at men.  Angry feminism I believe happens when women are so fed up with the ways they are defined by culture that they make it their life’s mission to debunk that. They are triggered and are compelled to do something.

The problem with this is that culture should never be what defines us in the first place.  Culture changes.  Yes we should be actively trying to change culture as Christians but we shouldn’t be angry when it doesn’t bend to our will.  Trends come and go but our identity should be firmly rooted in Christ and what he says about us.

The truth is that Jesus doesn’t expect us to cook, clean, and fulfill our husband’s every desire.  Jesus doesn’t expect us to rear children perfectly and somehow all the bills magically get paid.  Neither does he expect us to be high powered and get everything done.

He calls us and qualifies us according to completely different standards. When we see ourselves that way I believe we will no longer be angry. Then we can call culture out from a place of understanding.  Feminism is about empowerment.  Jesus is also about empowerment.  Look it up.  The angry people are simply a reflection of identifying with something that was never our identity to begin with.

Why am I telling you all of this?  Because a friend of mine posted something on Facebook with the hashtag #wifegoals and it triggered me.  I’m not perfect either!

I leave you with my favorite feminist song:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VyYsW2_Ar2Y 

Conversation Rather than Shaming

I was thinking about how I get hit on a lot in Ubers and how that makes me uncomfortable.

My question was a) does anyone else experience this? b) why don’t the guys see this as a problem?

Then I thought about one of my favorite This American Life episodes where a woman decides to interview catcallers. She had done her research and found that  the majority of women get really uncomfortable by catcalling.  She chose to engage these men intellectually in conversation about this.

She asked them why they did it and what they wanted out of that interaction and their answers were quite interesting. Then she explained her point of view and the majority of women’s point of views. Some of these men realized they were actually getting the opposite of what they had intended. Some of them even told her they would never cat call again!

As I’m thinking about my Uber driver experience framed in the light of all of these harassment cases I’m realizing the saddest thing is that sometimes men just don’t know how their actions effect others.

Some people grew up in such broken homes they don’t know what appropriateness means. They have to have it explained to them in a way that they will understand. It’s like sending men back to pre-school but it’s necessary.

I see gender bashing happening more often than before. But the problem is not gender. The problem is not bad people. The problem is wrong mindsets.

As a society we support rehabilitation for criminals and then turn around and villanize sex offenders. I don’t think we realize how hypocritical that is. We extend grace but only to a certain extent. We choose to disengage in conversation with people who we believe will never understand.

I certainly support making examples of people. I’ve seen it done well in a really out of control preschool class. That should not be the norm though. We should not be shaming people every minute to make up for the crimes they committed.

What would change in our culture if we stopped pointing fingers and started understanding even the hardest criminal? What would happen if we stopped shaming perpetrators but instead chose to engage in conversation with them about truth?

I feel like we are in a good place as a society as we are publicly discussing morals. What is absolute truth and how can we bring people into an understanding of right ethical behavior? I think we need to start with compassionate conversation.