BE WITH ME

After a weekend of ulitmate joy and pain, I am beginning to see what real relationship looks like.
It's crazy to me that someone would feel the need to spend large amounts of money on lighting, technology, music, furniture, whatever really, in order to gain the approval of many. Let me tell you, I've learned that all it takes is a minimum of 2 bodies, a place to sit (even a dirty floor) and the willingness to BE WITH the person or people around you.
I think in our fast-paced world, we often feel the need for entertainment, the need to prove that what you have is worth more than the next person they might walk by. In a world that is consistently sending messages to us through all different kinds of senses and tactics, I begin to question if that is how we should really be seeing our relationships, and further, our future relationships?
You see, when I think about the times that have impacted me the most, it is not when bright lights were flashing around on a stage, it is not about hearing someone speak into a microphone, it is certainly not about watching TV or a movie. Instead, the moments, the precious precious moments that I treasure, are the times when simplicity was at its best. Sitting on the floor with two best friends discussing our lives and the struggles we all have till 2AM. Cuddling on a couple mattresses, surrounded by blankets and the arms of people who love me. It is about group hugs outside my car late at night, looking up and seeing the stars, and then looking down and seeing the stars personified. Yes, these are the times in life that mean the absolute most to me and will remain as vivid and impressionable memories forever.
People around us do not desire our money, our materials, possessions, or treasures, they do not desire entertainment, or the next best video game (sorry I had to throw that in). In reality, people desire other people. It is how we were made to live, it is how our hearts were formed. We live in a lonely lonely world that is full of the need to be captivated by the 'WOW' factor. My bad, we do not NEED to be captivated by it, on the contrary, we NEED to be captivated by the beauty that surrounds us in people.
This weekend, was rough.
I hate change, I hate saying goodbye, and I hate missing people. All of which took place. Friday, I spent the night with 5 close friends, it was our last night together and in their house, we like to call ourselves The Ovaries. It was a great night, how could it not be great?? We laughed, we cried, we sang, we played cards, we drank red wine, and we played STEAM ROLLER! It truly was one of the best nights of my life. I thought about it later, what made it so great?? We spent the ENTIRE night in one little room, filled with a couple mattresses and blankets. Likewise, on Saturday night, a couple of my small group girls came over to sleepover. We sat in my basement all night, on one air mattress (there were 5 of us), candy, and some quality cuddling. One last example, yesterday, after lunch with the family we went down by the lake, I spent a couple minutes sitting and watching some of the fam skip stones in the water. It was overwhelming how content and happy everyone was, and I was.
It was a weekend of simply being WITH the people that I love. How simple eh?! Why do we choose to make it so complicated, I will never know. But I'm sooo thankful for the constant reminders of what it means to love someone, what it means to be WOWed by someONE. We need to WOW people with our love, grace, and willingness to BE WITH them.
I've just been going on and on, but I guess I've just really seen the need to be present with the people you are surrounded by. Not wishing for anything or anyone else, but who you are with.
It can be scary, it is not only setting yourself up for potential rejection, but it's also allowing vulnerability to take place, with the hope that the person longs to be with you too. Be WOWed by the people surrounding you, by their hearts, by their captivating beauty. I'm not going to go into the speech about living simply, but in reality, I think the longing of our heart to be present with people and to belong to people, is evidence of our longing to simply be us, nothing holding us, nothing clinging to us, but just to sit on a dirty floor and share lives, to lie in a bed of cuddling and reminice over memories while laughing and crying, to spend time with people who are inspirational, doing nothing but laughing and eating candy, we experience love in raw form. Love the way it was meant to be.

Vests and Value

Over the last few days, through conversations, reading, and observing, I have began to see that so many of us give cheap worth and value to people. Specifically, as someone who classifies themselves as a "christian", I have begun to realize that sometimes, we have things a little backwards (and by little, I mean A LOT).
I've been extremely frustrated in my life recently. I know where I want to be and yet, I don't have the capacity or ability to be there yet. For a time, I thought that because I wasn't living the life that I know I need to, that I had no authority in talking about it. Mostly I'm talking about living amongst the forsaken, seeking out love and grace, and learning through interdependent living. It is hard for someone who comes from a middle-upper class, white, suburbia town and family, to speak of caring and loving for the poor, and to go further and challenge that we move our asses down there and be with them, many would see my life as hypocritical, at least in my view they would. I think a large part of me is fearful of what that live could be like and demand from me. I want to love, show compassion and grace, I really do, but I think I want to do it on my own terms. When you make a decision to move to a place of rejection, of abandonment, of forsakenness, and pain, you are making a decision to severely MESS UP your life. For right now, it is so easy to go, give my time, love, pour a cup of coffee, sit and listen to someone for an hour, but once 2 o'clock hits, I'm out. I can return back to the life of comfort, of no worries (really), besides what I need to make myself for lunch from my abundant fridge. It's crazy how fast you can switch back from a life of rawness, to a life emersed in filth, materialism, and superficial happiness. I've also realized how easy band-aid fixes are. For example, around Christmas time, I went through all my clothing and gave up a lot of stuff I had. I kept thinking of the quote from Dorthy Day, "if you have two coats, you've stolen one from the poor", and let me tell you, I had a number of coats. The hardest thing for me to do was give up all my vests (the puffy things that make you warm but so cool at the same time...or so I thought). I had approximately 5, meaning I was stealing from 4 other people. I don't say this to sound self-righteous, because in reality it's the exact opposite. I was so twisted in my thinking, I thought that in doing this, something miraculous would happen and I would be LIVING THE LIFE...maybe I was, maybe I still am, who knows. Point of the story is, for a short time I felt necessary, I felt like I was contributing to a cause much more than who I am. And don't get me wrong, I think there is a need and a place for these actions to occur, because without these things, Value Village, Sal Army, Amity would not exist to help those in need. However, we cannot, we absolutely CANNOT leave it there.
Jean Vanier, one of the founders of L'Arche Community for Disabled People, wrote a book entitled "Finding Peace" where he writes:
" Soon after founding L'Arche, a woman came to see me. She had some clothes and worn out shoes that she wanted to give to the men we had welcomed. Her intention was surely kind, but I felt her vision was patronizingly distorted-- as if she were offering garbage to people who are garbage. Why do we want to give away things that we ourselves do not value?" (2003; 16-7).

This is the question I began to ask myself. Why are we so quick to give up the stuff that has no value to us anymore? and What is that saying to the people who are receiving it?
More than this, becomes the question of genuine relationship. When we truly seek to value and give worth to those around us, we step away from the bare minimum we can give, and instead desire to provide extravagance and abundance to the people we value and love. I don't mean material abundance necessarily. Let me make this personal, think for a second of your favourite person, be it someone you like romantically, a good friend, or a child. Think of the love you have for them, think of how much you value them. Now ask yourself, if this person needed a new jacket, would I give them the worn out arms, the broken zipper, jacket from 1984 that's been withering away in your closet? I'd like to think you're saying NO, I'd like to think that you'd want to get them a nice jacket, that will protect them from the cold, that may be in style, that has durable zippers and sustainable material to last them for at least a couple years. Am I right?
I guess the challenge here, is what does that love hold? It holds contact, relationship, interdependence, TIME. When we say we love someone, ideally, I'd like to think that means we will care about them through the thick and thin. I'm beginning to think that charity requires a willingness, while compassion demands willingness through suffering.
Sorry if this seems scattered.
More thoughts to come...

Friends, Hearts and Hands

“When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives mean the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand.” --Henri Nouwen

Over the last few weeks, I've been thinking a lot about what it means to be a "friend". The dictionary definition of "friend" gives us a fairly simplistic, structured defintion. Such as, " a person attached to another by feelings of affection or personal regard", or "a person who is on good terms with another; someone who is not hostile." I don't know about you, but I'd like to think a friend is more than this. While I think it's so important for these characteristics to be present in a healthy relationship, I also would like to think of a friend as something far greater than that.
I would never classify myself as "popular", or ever be the girl that would walk down the hall and know every single head that strolled by. However, it becomes easy for me to classify people as my "best friends" without even thinking about how well I know them, or their hearts for that matter. In the last few days, I've really come to realize a lot of the characteristics I appreciate about the people closest to me. For me, Henri Nouwen pins the nail on the head with the quote above. Relationships are not about the people that we have to "fix" us. On the contrary, they are the people who enter into suffering and pain with us. Sometimes it's surprising who we choose to enter into that pain with.
While some would argue that the word friend is used too often and too loosely, I would simply argue, that we need to define the term for ourselves. For me, a friend is someone who knows me, who does not fear when I say "confession" and even further, who accepts me, laughs at me, challenges me, or loves me regardless of what comes next. Someone who knows me well enough to know that when I get quiet, it either means I'm tired, or hurt. Someone who knows the difference between the two. Someone who knows that I LOVE being the favourite, and instead of making fun of that or treating it like its nothing, allows me to be the favourite and looks out for that insecurity in me. Someone who will know that when I say I want to be alone, that really, I don't...EVER. Most of all, I love knowing that the people closest to me, love my heart and are willing to hurt with it, laugh with it, cry with it, and hold it.
I think what this does for me, is provide me with confidence in my relationships. And this confidence produces and empowers me to go and enter into pain and joy with others. Henri Nouwen also writes about enlarging the inner community of your heart. I think for awhile, I would say that I had a large inner community, but I was fooling myself. Since, I have learned from those around me, who have taken my heart, wrapped their hands around it, stopped the bleeding when pain is present, laughed when joy was evident, that creating an inner community can be even harder than we think. But it is through this inner community that we begin to see the reality of who we are and the worth and value of others.
It is because of you, that I can find freedom in my heart and in yours, that I can experience your pain and you can experience mine, that I can experience your joy and you can experience mine. That I can experience your love, grace and compassion, and you can experience mine. More than this, that I can fully and completely experience your Christ, and you can experience mine. It is through that that authentic and beautiful community is created and united.
Thank you for your hands, that so quickly hold my heart and never ever let it go.

"We are called to hold our hands against the wounds of a broken world, to stop the bleeding"--Donald Miller