Seriously

Sometimes I am so serious.  

Too too serious about things that other naturally think are funny.   Lately this has been on my mind.  

When I was a little girl, my dad would need to pull me aside and say, "Jessica, I can tell you are worried.  You and me, we're the same.  But I don't want worry to fill your life."  And then he would tell me about both spiritual and practical things that would help me find my way out of it.  That was real care.   

You can make this academic, but it shouldn't be.  On a very real level, you're supposed to hear it like I did when I was a kid, when my dad would pull me aside and help me and say it plain.  Keeping things light is also a release from a burden you were never meant to bear. 


On some level it's just in the make up of my natural bent toward life. 
But I know I can't just stop there.  I think there's more to it.  

Truest Self and 3 Good Things

This morning, today, life is...
1.  good music 
2.  winter weather
3.  new inspiration from women 10 years ahead of me in life and the living of it.   

The ones who remind me of who I want to be. 

 I, like everyone else, drove very slowly to work. It took me twice as long to get to school. But oh well.  Today I didn't care. 

Brick Laying

Recently written, just now posted.....now that we are out of hibernation...

Hello dear person. I hope this finds you well. 

Today life is a written letter.  More like a letter than most days, and I don't know why. 

Maybe it's because despite life and the living of it, I'm learning things in the quiet, outside of recent storms.   I cannot seem to get away from a faraway feeling that is healthy, good, boxing me in.  That this is what introverts do well, and an extrovert like me takes longer to learn.  

God is talking to me about life in feeling far away, and also in conversation with people I know best.

I'm reading a lot, writing a lot, praying a lot, stepping back, getting the good feeling of 'impression' on my life.  Like something good is being pressed onto the shape of my life. 
I think this is called heart work.   I find it lately in me. 

But, reader, before that whole 'reading a lot, writing a lot, praying a lot' vibe gets anywhere close too lofty and abstract to you, let me just say this.  

It has brought me to the end of myself. 

Good Medicine

For many hours today I have been holed up, writing into the word document I talked about in the last post.  The one catching ALL of the unpolished thoughts, as they come to me, unedited and fierce and quiet.  That's the me in winter lately, making sense of life and the living of it.

I have been camped out in this one spot in a café, and at times feeling 'flowy' and forgetful about where I am, so inspiring is said word document.   Other times, I've felt like January is in my veins and breath and bones.  Like the cold is never going to leave, even though I'm warm right now.  It's a mindset.  One that many Minnesotans get used to.   Someone said it like that to me today, louder and with a few more curse words interspersed in the conversation.  I felt I agreed with the statement. 

The other side of me, the side that lives in Minnesota so happily for all of these years, really does love the snow.  Are other things in creation so unavoidably brilliant? 

Maybe the sky and sunrises. But snow is really just amazing on so many levels, and to live in such a beautiful world sometimes stops me in my tracks.  Despite trudging through the snow emergency-esque streets of Minneapolis today on the way into church, I was feeling that snow is still something that makes me marvel at God and wonder.  And I am glad for this feeling because sometimes people DON'T have that and they STILL live here.

The Sinner's Heart and Old Music

Today I felt like I was in high school again.

This morning, on the drive to school, I reached back (literally and figuratively) in the car to the cd case that holds all of the old music.  The music I don't listen to very often at all, things from the early 2000s, when life was different for me. 

This kind of music doesn't take me to a specific place in my memory.  It's more of a feeling.  To a time when I was a much younger Christian, and I realize lately, must less jaded about the world.  Everyone says that.  But it's true.  You're different when you're young.  There's a disparity I feel in this fervor and life and Spirit-filled way that I used to live.  And what I live out now. 

I think I'm facing that sadness.    I also think it's ok because I have turned my face to the beautiful way out of it. 

Where I Am

Hiatus over.  Hiatus done.  I have returned to things public, because vulnerability in this lens is actually very good work for the soul.  Sometimes, as you know, I agree with a lot of people who feel that the internet is overwhelming and strange. 

But I am compelled to write for God, for myself, for others.  That's more of a heartbeat in my life than most things.  When I pay attention to this, things flow.  When I don't, things get stale. 

To date in January I have filled 114 pages with single spaced thoughts.  In a word document.  There it all sits, in a word document that waits for me alone.  There is something exceptionally comforting about typing thoughts and ideas and words into such a small, reserved space.  You edit yourself for good reason.  You are not all things to all people. 

But there is also something brave and undeniably true about sending them out into the world as well.