30 beliefs for 30 years

at 26, the list was best memories.
at 27, favorite gifts.
at 28, my most influential mentors.
at 29, a list of 30 things i wanted to accomplish before i turned 30.

i'm still reporting on those 30 things, but it's time for this year's list: 30 things i believe.

1. i believe in the power of positivity.
2. i believe that the love from our pets may be the closest tangible example of God's love for us.
3. i believe that people can change lives, even if journeys only cross for a moment.
4. i believe in a Creator who delights in creation and in those who join in creating goodness in this world.
5. i believe in friendships that last a lifetime.
6. i believe that french kiss is still one of the best movies of all time.
7. i believe that we are meant to live in community with one another.
8. i believe in Jesus as the Christ who came to teach us the timeless message of truly serving others.
9. i believe in equality for all.
10. i believe that the world would be a better place if women were truly afforded the same opportunities as their male counterparts.
11. i believe that our wrinkles tell the stories of our lives.
12. i believe that we have become too anonymous, and that this is extremely dangerous.
13. i believe that the privileged have a responsibility to speak for those who cannot be heard.
14. i believe that we must do more than speak, if we ever want progress.
15. i believe that it takes a village to raise a child.
16. i believe in love that transcends all reason.
17. i believe that the only epic concerts are the ones where the artists tell their stories.
18. i believe that my mother makes the absolute best cheesecake in the world.
19. i believe in authenticity.
20. i believe that painting your walls a different color can change the essence of a room.
21. i believe that knowledge is power, but that power doesn't equal greatness.
22. i believe in soul mates, although they come in many different forms.
23. i believe that music transforms those who silence themselves long enough to listen.
24. i believe in family.
25. i believe that we are better than the mediocrity we've become accustomed to.
26. i believe that history repeats itself.
27. i believe in grace.
28. i believe that one day the church will figure it out.
29. i believe in you.
30. i believe in me.

30.b4.30 read all about it

the next category of items on the list i'd like to write about are the books. 

"a truly good book teaches me better than to read it. i must soon lay it down, and commence living on its hint. what i began by reading, i must finish by acting." ~ henry david thoreau

reading changes us. it causes us to think, it sparks curiosity and it takes us to places we may never get to visit. reading reminds us that the world does not, in fact, revolve around our puny little lives. reading helps us to remember that there is a big world out there, and that there will always be more to learn.

so i included some reading on my list:
4) read an auto/biography
8) read the 4th book in the maze runner series (don't judge me)
21) read lauren winner's "still: notes on a mid-faith crisis"
28) read all of the unread books on my shelves

and i even included some writing:
26) get published (check.)
30) journal about these 30 things and my attempts to succeed (check. check.)

how did i do? well, there are no unread books left on my shelves and i read mindy kaling's autobiography is everyone hanging out without me (and other concerns). it was fantastic. the fact that she jokes about it being a second-rate bossypants only pushes it even closer to tina fey's brilliance.

i've already written about reading the kill order, but i haven't shared much about lauren winner's still: notes on a mid-faith crisis. there were just too many take-aways. this is a book that came into my life at just the right time.

some of my favorite quotes:

"some days i am not sure if my faith is riddled with doubt 
or whether, graciously, my doubt is riddled with faith...
i doubt; i am uncertain; i am restless, prone to wander. 
and yet glimmers of holy keep interrupting my gaze." p. xiv

"i am torn in two but i will conquer myself. i will dig up the pride. 
i will take scissors and cut out the beggar. 
i will take a crowbar and pry out the broken pieces of God in me. 
how many pieces? it feels like thousands." 
p. 24 (anne sexton poem)

"sometimes the reshaping is not big, not audible; 
not a move, a marriage, a child, a heroic change of course. 
sometimes it is only here inside, how you make sense of things. 
sometimes it is only about who you know yourself to be." p. 32

"the point, i think, is that you can't simply pursue God in the desert; 
you must also begin to pursue yourself." p. 56

"i start to suspect that the reason my christian life hasn't completely conked out 
is that even when i am not praying, other people pray for me, on my behalf...
their prayers the blood running through my own shutting-down veins." p. 68

"from deep in the tradition, from 'the cloud of unknowing', 
a fourteenth-centrury text from an unnamed english monk: '
you only need a tiny scrap of time to move toward God.' 
...it seems that scraps are all i have to bring forward." p. 108

"even on the days when i don't believe in God, i still will tell you that one night, 
while sitting in church, i heard God's voice, naming a resurrection of sorts, 
telling me i could stay." p. 149

"'what you promise when you are confirmed,' said julian's father, 
'is not that you will believe this forever. 
what you promise when you are confirmed 
is that that is the story you will wrestle with forever.'" p. 172

"i have heard that many of us sojourn in the middle for a long, long time; 
that we have many middles; that we keep meeting and making new middles...
and i have heard that some people eventually leave the middle and arrive at an end. 
i have heard that this end is a place of wisdom, of beatitude. 
i have heard it is a place of unself-consciousness. 
i have heard there is a lot of give in the fabric there." p. 195

and there was the kicker:

"it is easier to read about prayer than to pray...sometimes i think that all this reading gets in the way, that the books become excuses, something to do in lieu of praying." ~ p. 75

i had spent my entire adult life (and most of my teenage years too) studying what it meant to be a christian. i had devoted my life and my career to studying prayers and liturgies and scripture and hymns and sermons. so it shouldn't have been a surprise that two years ago when i decided to switch careers and leave the world of professional ministry behind that i found myself lost.

i had never really learned just to be christian (or maybe i just forgot along the way). i had spent too much time studying it.

after finishing the book, i quit reading anything having to do with theology or christian spiritual practices. i set aside everything that might distract me from being instead of studying. and though i wouldn't say that i found myself at 'the end' lauren writes about, i do believe that i found my way out of this particular middle in my journey. i'm sure there will be many more middles in the future, but for now i'm enjoying a sense of belonging to a faith community and a sense of purpose in my identity as a Christ-follower.

30.b4.30 reclaiming my creativity

as my thirtieth birthday quickly approaches, i find it time to report out on how i've done with my list of 30 things i would accomplish before turning 30 years old.

one of the purposes of the list was to spark my creativity once again. there was a time in my life when painting and sketching and sculpting and crafting were the primary medium through which i expressed the inner thoughts of this introvert. eventually, i found writing. and while writing takes less tools, less space and less preparation or forethought, there's something about the visual arts that still pulls at me.

"the purpose of art is washing the dust of daily life off our souls." ~ pablo picasso

from the list...
3) paint something and hang it in my home
14) finish the afghan i began knitting in 2005

18) buy pencils and crack open my old sketch book
19) complete my map art project

how did i do? well, i've committed to going to a painting class with three of my friends and we've even already purchased the tickets. the afghan is progressing. i anticipate finishing it by christmas. pencils were purchased and i started sketching again. until pete tried to eat the pencils... and the map project? complete!

so, did i check everything off of the list? no. but i have reclaimed my creativity. and i've reclaimed the vulnerability that comes with being a creator.

part of my struggle with the visual arts is that when i put that paint brush to canvas, well, there's a chance that what i try to create won't turn out the way i envision it. there's a chance when i put that pencil to paper that i'll mess up and not be able to erase the imperfection so completely that others won't see it. there's a chance that it won't be perfect. there's a chance that people might realize that i'm not perfect.

"creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. art is knowing which ones to keep." ~ scott adams 

there's a deep vulnerability that comes with creating something and inviting others to see and potentially scrutinize your creation, because the mistakes i'm ready to live with or even put on display may not be the mistakes that others can forgive.

i wonder if that's how the Creator sees me.
maybe i'm a mistake worth keeping.