mel-web

We often find ourselves in a tough place.  We get overwhelmed with responsibilities, a painful experience, or just the stress of breathing.  So we look for hope and inspiration.  Our past though it may (or may not) be full or triumphs over similar situations, good memories, and wonderful people can also be tough to look at when we’re seeing negativity.  We don’t see the good stuff when we’re currently in a bad state.  We see the compromises we still don’t like, the bad choices we made, the dreams given up, the regret and remorse for the way things went.  So we can’t look back when we are really struggling again.  So we look to the future.

The future holds promise, excitement, dreams yet to come true.  But not so much when we’re not seeing our way through today.  Get hit with “I want that now!” issue.  Pain and frustration with what we have not yet achieved.  Might not even be stuff you can get: personal partner, understanding, timing, financial freedom, or anything else outside you’re control.  They are simply out of reach no matter how much you want them now.

So here we are, hating today, pissed of at yesterday, and frustrated with tomorrow.  Can’t look ahead, can’t look back, and hate the view here.  Now What?

Well, I have good news.  We’re not 2D.  Feels like it though doesn’t it?  It’s me and the world.  Just the two of us at odds.  You and those responsiblities, those needs, those pains.  There is what is inside you trying to get out and what it outside you pressing in.  Well I encourage you to try a new direction.  Up.  Yup, that’s right, toward the heavens.  Try it.  Bend your neck back and look up at the sky (works nicely outside).  It feels different. I promise.

There are days when you want a job, and there are days you love your career.  Jobs are simple, self contained methods of earning money.  You show up, you do your job, you leave and spend the money you made.  Careers are different.  They make demands on your time outside your paid hours, there’s potential to move, grow, and advance.  You invest in your skills and your abilities.   You make trade-offs in your life to do so.  But it feels good to be passionately wrapped up in something.  Today, and maybe next Monday, I’d just like a nice job.

To be honest though you can have nearly any position in the world and treat it as a job or a career.  If it’s meant to be treated like a career and you treat it like a job, well, things might not end well, and probably sooner than you’d like.  I can imagine your always worried that you’re being let go, and that is a scary prospect because you have no idea where you’d go if that happens.  Jobs are dependent on employers and don’t have much of a life of their own.  And if you have a job and you treat it like a career, well, I imagine you’re feeling rather unfulfilled and bothered about how others are not putting in like you do.  Life probably feels rather unfair because you’re not advancing and growing as it feels like you should be.  Balance comes in knowing what you have, and treating it appropriately.

I never wanted a career.  The idea of a job for a while until hubby & kids came along is much more appealing.  I want to be a old-school mom.   You know, great with house work, raising well rounded kids, a good host to neighbors and friends.  All that classic TV family stuff.  So, knowing that college was more secure than finding a suitor I went for a degree I could work from home with: Computer Science.  That’s gone well, a little too well.  Now, about 5 years later, I have budding career I never intended.

I find myself in this career a bit bitter, but a bit excited. I’m loving what I’m doing, and I’m hating getting up to do it.  I imagine someday I’ll have reduced hours and be more at peace with things.  But for right now, in this time, I feel oddly pressed into something I like.  And that just seems contradictory doesn’t it?  How does one get pressured into to doing something they want to do?  Wouldn’t it just happen without pressure?  I suppose it sort of did.  I love my where my career is going.  I can see it working out very well long term.  However, when the alarm goes off in the morning, I’m still going to be dragging me feet all the way to my beloved window seat in the office.

I left that cozy window seat at about 6:15 p.m. tonight after a 1.75 hour conference call with project members from Chicago and California.  I have some more work to do tonight (partly because I’m curious), and that will put me at about 10 hours today (which is quite a bit above my average).  So I find myself with sore eyes, an aching brain, and the curiosity of how I ended up in this career.  It’s a good career, but it’s definitely a career.  Now the balancing act: keep work at work, home at home, and reflect & mature each while not active at it.

I wouldn’t mind a job somedays, but I like where my career is going.

The majority of us listed ‘recess’ as one of favorite parts of ememtary school.  What happened to that?  It became our responsibility to have it on our own, and I failed.  Kinda.

I have a lunch at work, a reasonable break time actually, I should take recess.  Currently, I just read websites and eat at my desk. LAME!  Not that I don’t get great advice, and something I read today is inspiring this post, but what happened to running around?  I realized ‘exercise’ has become less like recess and more like work.  Maybe it’s the lack of playmates. Or maybe I’ve forgotten what fun is.  Exercise happens as a result of playing.  It’s time for recess.

I hereby request you all to contact me.  Lets get together at a park and play.  Disc golf, bicycle, frisbee games, volleyball, swimming, etc. etc. etc.

Call me! We’ll do lunch!

It’s a common phrase to say that someone who makes a obviously poor choice that effects others “should be taken out back and shot”.  But that doesn’t solve anything because they don’t get a chance to make up for their wrong doing.

Sitting by the window at work a Hummer H2 pulled up to the ajoinnig suite.  I took a good look at for a moment.  Then exclaimed to in my usual IRC haunt, “What an absurd and ridiculous civilian vehicle.”  My friend appropriately responded with

“Yeah, there is no reason on earth to own one other than to prove to the world you make a ton of money (IE, enough to be able to fill the tank.)”

This of course stirred up some passion in me, and some frustration with the state of US.  No one should be wasting money like that.  No one.  My proposal isn’t that we take someone like this out back and shoot them.  No, No.  I propose that if you have that much money and throw it away so foolishly you should be taken out back and left in a third world country for a week.

Seriously though: we really do need to show people why they’re doing and why it’s a problem.  I encourage you all do it in the little ways.  The simple ways.  We can change this world one little bit at a time.

Even the most heated discussion ends with gained perspective.  Often the conviction (aka stubbornness) of any party involved sheds light on another possible ‘right’.  Sometimes we learn our perspective was wrong.  Some times we find more support for our current conviction.  Sometime we just agree that there is more than one way and neither is more right than the other.

All heated conversations start the same way: peacefully.  And that’s how it started last night.  But at one point someone shared an opinion that wasn’t shared by all.  I walked away at the point when I became overwhelming offended.  I collected my thoughts so that I could make a clear, strong, proper representation of my opposite opinion.  In doing so I used a stereotype that we were both in:  All sportbikers are stunt monkey, wild child, loose cannons.  We both take offense to that stereotype, and suddenly the tables are turned.  We’re all part of stereotypes.  Women can’t drive, sportbikers are crazy idiots, geeks don’t play sports, and the list goes on.

We’re so quick to judge based on surface or first impressions.  We learn their profession before we meet them and suddenly you have a prefixed idea of who they are, what they stand for, and where their morality is like.  Or we see they’re ‘fat and lazy’, or ‘a dumb blonde’, or just ‘dumb’, and refuse to show them the same respect as we do our friends.  Then when we get lumped in, though, we’re offended.  So do we really treat people the way we want to be treated?

Yes, it’s the golden rule… but from where did this awesome idea come from?  The bible of course.  Where else does such timeless advice come from?  Being that it’s Lent and a time in which we are supposed to be renewing and growing our faith, a little scripture seems appropriate.  In Matthew 22 Jesus was tested by the people who tried to trick him into giving precedence to the commandments as though some were more important than others.  Instead he summed them up into two, one of which is the famous golden rule.

Matthew 22:36-40  (English Standard Version)

“Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment.  And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.  On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”

SO.  I learned last night that I’m not seen by everyone I know as perpetuating and feeding the “girls can’t ride” stereotype.  Which I was feeling heavy about.  And so I hope to someday be a far better rider than I am now so that I can pin “girls can ride” up on my private list of overcome challenges.  I want to pin it right up there next to “Girls can catch and filet fish”, “Girls and code”, “Sportbikers are controlled, normal humans”, and “Geeks are active and athletic”.

I think also did a decent job of opening the eyes of someone else to a new perspective on stereotyping.  I can only hope that I’ve passed along some food for thought to you as well.

So yesterday was Ash Wednesday.  This starts a very important season at church.  I would say more important than Advent (aka: the Christmas season).  Lent is the time leading up to Easter.  Being that Easter is basically the core of Christianity really… I mean, if you’re sharing the story of Easter you’re sharing the story of Christianity.  So what’s so important about the time preceding Easter?

Traditionally Easter was the time that new followers prepared for Baptism and old hands reexamined things.  Baptisms now take place as needed, whenever.  But we still should take time to reflect, study, and grow as followers.  And if you’re not baptized, now is an excellent time to look into changing that.

So one way to examine ourselves and our devotion as well as gain a better understanding of Easter is to give up something for 40 days.  In the past I have given up procrastination, forgetting to read my bible, and a variety of simpler things like chocolate (which, if you don’t know me, is weak because I don’t actually like chocolate).  This year is tough.  I’ve scaled so much of my life back because of the foot injury, low income, and personal devotion to God.  It took forever to come up with something significant to give up.  There is little ‘fluff’ in my life at that moment.  I want to give up something that will remind me daily to keep God in the forefront of my mind.

Several things have crossed my mind: my motorcycle, not living in a disorganized space (my bedroom is a mess, as is my paperwork for 2007), online chatting, booze, and much more.  But nothing seemed to fit my goal: to keep God at the forefront of my mind.  So what can I do?

I’ve given up recreational web surfing.  It’s the only thing I can think of that I do daily that I simply don’t need to do.  It’s rough, but it’s like giving up TV for most people. Wish me luck!

BTW: This does exclude me from all my ‘daily’ sites [ blogs, livejournal, web comics, etc], but is does not stop me from work related web use (duh!), I might even still update this blog, maybe.

I have such a list of things I’m passionate about.  Sometimes I don’t even realize that I’m passionate about something until I’ve flown off the handle about it.  This usually happens when someone else gets me going either by sharing my enthusiasm or have opposition to it.

The things that get us worked up, these passions, these things that we hold dear to us, are what make us different than any other living thing.  No matter how endearing my cat is, and how much I like to personify him, he’s a cat.  He doesn’t get a broken heart or infuriated with me when I take away his favorite toy so that I can wash it.  He just moves on.  Emotionally sterile.  Yes, it was is favorite toy, he does have favorites, but he’s not full of passion about it.

Passion is what gives us that spark in our eye when we talk about our hobbies, our loves, our interests.  I feel so blessed to have passion about so many things.  I’ve even had people (both strangers and friends) tell me how much they enjoy seeing me get passionate about something.  I feel compelled to compile a list of a few things that come to mind that I’m passionate about.  I would love it if you would help me grow my list and share some of your passions in the comments.

A few of mine:

• Worship & Discipleship
• Skiing
• Sportbiking
• Michigan
• Doing things “the right way” the first time
• Taking care of my body
• Pets
• Parenting (though I have no kids, yet)
• Good Friends
• My Partner: Ogg
• Work Ethic

Nothing in that list will fail to get me in an energized debate with someone who takes the opposing stance on the topic.  That’s not to say I’m right, or they’re wrong.  In fact several of those items are very subjective, for instance Parenting.  There are many ways to raise a child.  I have some strong feelings about parental responsibilities that will conflict with other valid methods of child rearing.  Though I’m bound to offend and upset some with this: I don’t find Worship & Discipleship to be subjective.  I don’t “believe” in God as if God were something I’m hoping on being there but am ultimately deeply unsure of.  I accept that God is as much a truth and fact as gravity, carbon, and water.  I can rely on God, eternal life, and all the truth of the bible as much as I can rely on the sun coming up tomorrow.

And there I go again, flying off the handle about my passion for God.  I look forward to seeing passion each day in those around me, even if they’re polar opposite of my passions.

Enjoy life, enjoy being human, enjoy your passions. Express your passions to the world; express your humanity.

Jesus said, and I quote, “I am the way, the truth and the life”.

Three very strong points. All three are at the core of Christian perspective. Jesus is our teacher who gives us the path (aka: way) to true happiness by following His teachings on love and life. In crucification He defeated death so that we’ll always have life, both in Heaven with our Father, and a more fulfilling one here if we follow him. But the truth?

Sure we can say simply that Jesus did not lie. Or that Jesus was, and that is the truth. But truth is something that runs much deeper. And I dare say it’s harder to accept whole truth than a savior and teacher. It’s so easy to make God and/or His son our co-pilot, to have him serve us, fitting Him into our lives as we see fit. It’s so easy to say “God loves me even if I don’t do everything right” and allow that to be our reason for not doing ‘faithy’ things. And although it is true that He is always forgiving our short comings it’s not an excuse to allow us to not even try. We’re commissioned children, made in His image, to follow the teachings of a savior. And yet because we’re known to be imperfect we allow ourselves to be as imperfect as we see fit. I hardly think that’s living up to God’s wishes.

It’s a challenge to convince myself that worship service is for Him and not me. It feels so unnatural to pass on Jesus’ love when I am confronted with people I despise. It’s really hard to accept that everything the bible says is right, and I’m wrong. I don’t want to have to study the bible daily as though it were life sustaining food for my soul. And it’s near impossible for me to talk about God in front of most people. However, life is short. Eternity isn’t. That doesn’t leave me with much time to screw around. Perhaps it’s time I drop the excuses and read up on what it is that God expects of me for real instead of going off hearsay and selfishness. Care to join me?

February is going to be a month I spent learning about God’s expectations of Me and all His kids. Would you like to say the same about your February? Comment.

As many of you know: The rear tire of my bike lost traction in a parking lot, snapped out, and crushed my left foot. What most of you won’t understand is why I still love my bike like I love God and living in a free country.

I am not poetic, nor am I an impressive orator. Without the help of others I could probably never express what it is about being a motorcyclist that I can never, and will never, give up. Lucky for me a stranger by the name of Dave Karlotski did it for me. Please read his story with an open mind and listen to the passion of a fellow rider.

Season of the Bike
by Dave Karlotski

There is cold, and there is cold on a motorcycle. Cold on a motorcycle is like being beaten with cold hammers while being kicked with cold boots, a bone bruising cold. The wind’s big hands squeeze the heat out of my body and whisk it away; caught in a cold October rain, the drops don’t even feel like water. They feel like shards of bone fallen from the skies of Hell to pock my face. I expect to arrive with my cheeks and forehead streaked with blood, but that’s just an illusion, just the misery of nerves not designed for highway speeds.

Despite this, it’s hard to give up my motorcycle in the fall and I rush to get it on the road again in the spring; lapses of sanity like this are common among motorcyclists. When you let a motorcycle into your life you’re changed forever. The letters “MC” are stamped on your driver’s license right next to your sex and height as if “motorcycle” was just another of your physical characteristics, or maybe a mental condition.

But when warm weather finally does come around all those cold snaps and rainstorms are paid in full because a motorcycle summer is worth any price. A motorcycle is not just a two-wheeled car; the difference between driving a car and climbing onto a motorcycle is the difference between watching TV and actually living your life. We spend all our time sealed in boxes and cars are just the rolling boxes that shuffle us languidly from home-box to work-box to store-box and back, the whole time entombed in stale air, temperature regulated, sound insulated, and smelling of carpets.

On a motorcycle I know I’m alive. When I ride, even the familiar seems strange and glorious. The air has weight and substance as I push through it and its touch is as intimate as water to a swimmer. I feel the cool wells of air that pool under trees and the warm spokes of sunlight that fall through them. I can see everything in a sweeping 360 degrees, up, down and around, wider than PanaVision and higher than IMAX and unrestricted by ceiling or dashboard.

Sometimes I even hear music. It’s like hearing phantom telephones in the shower or false doorbells when vacuuming; the pattern-loving brain, seeking signals in the noise, raises acoustic ghosts out of the wind’s roar. But on a motorcycle I hear whole songs: rock ‘n roll, dark orchestras, women’s voices, all hidden in the air and released by speed.

At 30 miles an hour and up, smells become uncannily vivid. All the individual tree-smells and flower-smells and grass-smells flit by like chemical notes in a great plant symphony. Sometimes the smells evoke memories so strongly that it’s as though the past hangs invisible in the air around me, wanting only the most casual of rumbling time machines to unlock it.

A ride on a summer afternoon can border on the rapturous. The sheer volume and variety of stimuli is like a bath for my nervous system, an electrical massage for my brain, a systems check for my soul. It tears smiles out of me: a minute ago I was dour, depressed, apathetic, numb, but now, on two wheels, big, ragged, windy smiles flap against the side of my face, billowing out of me like air from a decompressing plane. Transportation is only a secondary function. A motorcycle is a joy machine. It’s a machine of wonders, a metal bird, a motorized prosthetic. It’s light and dark and shiny and dirty and warm and cold lapping over each other; it’s a conduit of grace, it’s a catalyst for bonding the gritty and the holy.

I still think of myself as a motorcycle amateur, but by now I’ve had a handful of bikes over a half dozen years and slept under my share of bridges. I wouldn’t trade one second of either the good times or the misery. Learning to ride was one of the best things I’ve done.

Cars lie to us and tell us we’re safe, powerful, and in control. The air-conditioning fans murmur empty assurances and whisper, “Sleep, sleep.” Motorcycles tell us a more useful truth: we are small and exposed, and probably moving too fast for our own good, but that’s no reason not to enjoy every minute of the ride.

Religious nuts ask “Have you found God?” or “Have you found Jesus?” which always make me think of ridiculous movie quotes, particularly of Robin Williams. What about the reverse “Has God found you?” Slightly less stereotype-Jesus-Freak but still pretty corny. The point is, it’s not heavenly-hide-n-seek. You don’t “find” God. And for that matter God doesn’t find you. Like it or not, no matter what, you were, are, and forever will be in his presence. It is His planet after all.

When you live with someone who loves you they do things for you that you don’t notice all the time. My mom did so much for me that I was totally unaware of (until I moved out of course). Those little subtle loving gestures are so easy to miss if you’re not looking for them. I don’t know if I made my bed everyday, but it was made when I got home. Honestly, I probably thought I made it more often than I actually did. That’s how is with God too. If you’re not looking for His work you probably won’t notice it. But you’re on his planet and He sees you, and if you look, you’ll see Him.

So if God’s not hiding from us, and we’re not hidden from Him what’s the problem? Those religious nuts are obviously trying to talk to us about something. Some landmark experience? Maybe for some. But I’m doubting that’s how it is for most of us. I think it’s more about acknowledging that we like Him being there. Not just when we really want Him, but all the time, every day, every hour. Here’s the hard part: if you want Him there, in what capacity do you want Him there? It’s a lot easier to keep God behind you, watching your back. But is that really where your teacher told you to be? Leading? Telling God where you’re going? If God’s your co-pilot I think you’re in the wrong seat.

God, who created the mankind, isn’t likely to take orders from tiny little you. So quit playing games. God’s not hiding from you, and you can’t hide from God. But you can work with Him. Think about it. What if you set your goals not on things you can see here, but on what God sees for you? To be focused on God, on love, on the unknown places He’ll take me which are beyond what I can want for myself. Wow. That’s an awe inspiring idea. I’m aiming for that! And that my friends is something worth waking up for in the morning!