apparently i write like a man...

www.genderanalyzer.com

i entered two individual posts and got 83% and 85%. meaning this analyzer is over 80% sure that a man wrote those posts.

the whole blog got 65%.

this probably isn't a surprise to many of you.

i will be editing and revising the last post for peacemaker.com. look for a more focused commentary and less of a devotional writing. still getting used to this journalistic type writing.

Trust...

an older woman from my church congregation invited me to coffee a few weeks ago. i accepted her invitation with outward enthusiasm but inward caution. you see, i was one of the nominees for three open elder positions at my church and i couldn't help but assume that her sudden interest in us getting together was motivated by this. turns out i was right. one of the first things she said to me was that she asked me to coffee because she didn't trust that i was ready for the responsibility of being an elder. she didn't think i was capable of handling the stress and the weight of the decisions looming in our church's future. when i asked her why she thought this way, she answered simply, "why, because i don't know you!"

this got me thinking...about trust. the Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionary definition of trust is (noun) 1 a: assured reliance on the character, ability, strength, or truth of someone or something b: one in which confidence is placed." now, rightly i couldn't expect a woman who doesn't know me to have assured reliance in me or expect her to know me enough in an one hour coffee session to place her confidence in me. but with a continued relationship, i hope that we can build a mutual trust that will move our relationship forward.

i often like to transfer these simple ideas about relationships between people to our relationship with God. we are called to trust God right? well how many times have you looked at something and essentially said to God, "well, i'm just not sure if you can handle this. my life is just so complicated you see, and, well, i'll just deal with it myself." speaking for myself, i do this constantly. and it struck me over the weekend, that i keep trying and trying to trust God, but i still struggle and struggle with it because i don't know Him. sure i "know" him, but how much time have i spent reading scriptures to see His character, to see how much He loves His people and takes care of them. and by reading scripture, i mean specifically the old testament.

so often we get stuck in our post-modern, meta-cognitive, over-analyzing way of thinking about "religion" and "God." we think and question and talk to each other (again, speaking for myself here). these are not bad things, but we must remember that one of the reasons we have the Bible is to learn. and the more we learn about God, the more we will be able to trust Him.

now, the woman at my church might learn more about me and still not trust me. i'm human and, despite what you might think, i'm not perfect. so that assured reliance may never exist. but God is perfect. and He is faithful. and he shows us again and again in scripture. so go read and learn why you can trust God. He is good!

Trial Book Review

So...I am part of a book club and we have our monthly meeting tonight. I decided to take a few minutes today to reflect about the book and I wrote this little review. I think this is something I want to invest more time in. I'll post more as I write more.

A Thousand Splendid Suns / هزار خورشید تابان by Khaled Hosseini

My review

rating: 3 of 5 stars
I think this book was a well written exploration of a war-torn nation. While this setting can take center stage a times (and rightly so!) the book does a good job of focusing on the characters and their relationships. The majority of the characters seem to encounter each other roughly, causing bumps and bruises that do not go away easily. The characters who survive are the ones able to finally look outside of themselves, and then they are healed.

I tend to enjoy books that explore women's identity and this did not disappoint. The main characters are two women with different backgrounds who are forced to live and work together in an intimate setting. At first, they do not understand each other, but as they learn to love each other, they learn more about themselves in the process. Each is able to reach a point of complete self-identification, which is not devoid of the tragedy that has ravished their homeland.

I loved reading this book and would recommend and pass it along to most people. It was an addictive read that I could barely put down. Hosseini is a genius with words, plot, and characters.





View all my reviews.

well, my trip to seattle and continuing "evacuation" have slightly changed my goals in life right now. so the whole "month without plastic thing" isn't a priority at this moment. i feel like having looked at how much plastic i have used is a good incentive to cut down. and i have, for sure, cut down my consumption in many ways, but i know to do away with plastic properly will require an amount of focus, time, and energy that i won't be able to devote to it at this moment in time.

so, hurricane gustav wasn't as bad as we all thought it was going to be, which is such a blessing, praise the LORD. however, things in new orleans and the rest of souther louisiana are far from perfect right now. there is still a lot of debris and the sewage systems aren't running perfectly. things will be improving significantly in the coming weeks, though. it is just pretty interesting to be in the midst of anticipating a storm to come wreck your home. i've never really experienced that and honestly, i don't think i would like to do it again.

however, i had a great time in seattle. not a bad place to be stuck at all. i am thankful that my plans took me in this direction in the first place. i'll be honest, part of me wants to move here so badly. and maybe it will be my next stop on my "tour of america." maybe i should make a new goal to see how many states i can live in by the time i am 30. i already have OK, FL, NY, CO, TN, and LA under my belt. so that's six down, 44 to go!!!

but i am anxious to return to New Orleans. God led me there for a reason, to help rebuild. so i know that this is the time for me to go and lend my hands and my heart. my LORD will take care of my future for me.

harder than it looks...

so this fun activity that i set up for myself of saving all the plastic i use in a month...a lot harder than it looks!!! first of all, i don't even want to go into the looks i get when i stuff the plastic forks and knives i use at work into my purse. i mean, my coworkers already think i am a little crazy as it is.

the real challenge came when i flew back to boulder for the weekend. my bags were stuffed pretty full on the way out there, so i didn't really have a ton of space to fill with used straws and plastic cups. suffice to say, i left a lot of my used plastic in trash bins in colorado. ugh.

i am actually surprised with how little disposable plastic i use on a daily basis. maybe i am already pretty conscious of my plastic consumption?? or maybe i was so indoctrinated by boulder that this whole deal is not actually going to show me very much about my life. in any case, i will continue on my way.

i haven't quite figured out how i am going to solve the shampoo issue yet...

Copycat...

Something I have been convicted of in the past year (probably along with many of you) is the idea that we should be good stewards of our planet. I mean, God gave us this beautiful globe and we've kind of trashed it, right? I am not going to get into a discussion about global warming here, because I know those of you who might be reading this, and I know there are passions on both sides of that issue that I don't want to arise.

In any case, let's be honest about our situation. God plopped us in Eden. My guess is that on a typical walk through Eden, one probably didn't see the mounds of trash that litter most streets now. I doubt the water sources were covered with 200,000+ gallons of oil, like my mighty Mississippi is right now. So right now you are thinking "but kristin, we aren't in Eden anymore, remember?" True true. But we are still residing in God's glorious creation. He gave us stewardship over Earth and I don't think we are doing the best job of taking care of it.

So I was cruising through BBC News and I came across this article and subsequent blog by Christine Jeavans. I am incredible intrigued with this idea of going for a month without buying or consuming any new plastic. And, in case the title of this blog hasn't already given away the punchline...I am going to try it out.

The first thing Chris did was save all of her plastic she (and her household) consumed in a month. So that is my first step. Shouldn't be too hard, right? Just throw it all into a box instead of the garbage. Well, rinse it out first because otherwise the flying cockroaches will invade. Gross.

So ummm, I'll keep you updated.

Also notice the exploration of new technologies in this blog. I am inordinately proud of myself.

where my boredom at work and my elastic imagination meet...

Overanalyzing movies for a deeper meaning is a favorite past time of mine. I usually do it as a joke, to get a rise out of my literalist friends, but occasionally I stumble upon something that resembles truth. In a recent conversation with a friend (Joey5 shout out) about the movie ET, I realized that it really might be a beautiful example of community. Let's look at the facts.

A little boy discovers an alien and decides they should be friends. Their community of two is precious, indeed, but soon they cannot do it by themselves. So Elliot enlists the help of his siblings, Drew Barrymore and unidentified 80s male child-psuedo-star. The three of them share their specific gifts with each other to continue the course of work to help the poor alien creature. They are brave and reckless, living full out for their dream (right...this isn't a stretch at all...). The ending (I won't spoil it for any of you...but it may or may not involve a flying bicycle) requires the help of a larger group of people, all working together for a common goal.

So this is community. There are layers for sure, but there is a sense of solidarity, while each person plays out his/her own part of the plan. Like a body, right?? Community=body.

So let's stop trying to hide the alien all by ourselves and ask some friends for help. Yikes, this might be a terrible analogy. Hope it was worth it, Joseph Penta.

life as i know it...

the truth is, i am seeing that i don't really know life. or at least, not life to the full as Jesus talks about. it seems to me that we have perverted the idea of Christian living in our capitalist, individualistic American society. i am not turning "anti-America" or whatever, i am just talking about things that i get caught up with myself.

as you probably know, or don't know, i am a fairly independent person. i live by myself, i like to go to the movies by myself, i would rather spend an evening reading alone than going to a crowded bar, or something equally as overwhelmingly social. My second sentence as a child was "i do it myself" (right after "i want a bite"). i have always lived under the assumption that the best version of myself would be independent, self-sufficient, and every other synonym you can think of.

i am beginning to see that this goal of self-sufficiency is to my detriment. i am being hard-core convicted by GOD about this. the rebuke is coming from all sides. my eyes are being opened to the fact that the full life Jesus talks about cannot be achieved alone. we need a community of believers.

communion, community, body of Christ. i don't think it is a coincidence that Jesus talks about the bread and the wine in terms of His body and also the believers in terms of His body. not only are we to partake of the Lord's Supper, but we are also to partake of each other. no, i am not referring to cannibalism, but i am talking about being in tune with the church, the real church, the body of Christ.

so, what does real community look like?? i don't know. but let's find out together. (that's for any of you apple folks out there). i think that Acts (the book in the bible) is a great place to start. or any of the gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John). read the words of Jesus about community. read the words of the early believers who were living in community.

i am currently reading The Irresistible Revolution, which i think is a great resource. it gives a picture of what a community might look like. but i don't think all communities need to be so extreme, if you will. they will, by nature, be revolutionary though. i mean, really, really sharing life together is going to flip our worlds upside down.

think about it this way...we look at the individual as the strongest entity. we secretly (or outright) look down upon people who "need a helping hand." does that even make sense?? we might preach mottos like "strength in numbers" but yearn for a solitary hero to emerge and win the battle. the bible says that a cord of three strands is not easily broken. when we reinforce levies we want to double the steel, not just use one sheet.

this kind of thinking needs to cease. i am talking to myself here. i take pride (read: i am prideful) in doing things alone. i love telling people that i'll go out to dinner by myself or that i drove by myself across the country to move alone. i need to shed this disease of self-sufficiency and dive into the truth of community.

Jesus wants us to be together. He wants us to be together in loving, sharing, and supportive communities. this also doesn't just mean people who are like us. we don't want the body of Christ to be all thumbs or all ears or all wallets. GOD wants us to experience Him in different ways and He wants His people to come together because of His love for us.

this may seem old hat for some of you, but i am going through a revolution and i want my community to join. so let's share life and experience the fullness that Christ wants us to have.

Sunday, March 02, 2008

March 2...71 degrees and sunny

So I have been kind of fake writing a book. Mostly just writing a lot of my thoughts down in a cool notebooks and trying to tie things together. But one theme seems to resonate through the whole project, and even into journal entries dating back to last spring. The search for significance that we all come across. I think it is a pretty strong urge inside all of us (us being my generation) to find our purpose or significance. But it seems that everyone I talk to has an idea of what their purpose should be. It is as if we are searching for a purpose that fits into our idea of what we should be doing in life. We don't want to accept that perhaps we were meant for something different from what we want.

It is all well and good to want certain things in life, but when we start rejecting or minimizing our accomplishments something has gone wrong. We cannot say that we haven't found a purpose just because whatever purpose is put in front of us right now doesn't fit into our "plan" for our lives.

Which brings me to another point. We are so trained to plan ahead. Planning is a good thing, and you all know that I love me some good planning. Even if I do something seemingly spontaneous, usually I have a plan behind it. But I am looking around at my friends and seeing this need for planning paralyzing them. And this is why.

You want to plan, but you can't plan if you don't have an end goal. And that end goal is usually what you think your "purpose" is. So without finding a purpose that fits into your paradigm, you can't plan, which means you stay stagnant. But what if you won't discover your purpose until you take a step forward. It is ok to move ahead without a long term plan. It is ok to try different paths to see if they work or not. Just don't let yourself get stuck in the "I chose this path so I must stick to it" mentality (like I did for awhile here in Nashville). It is ok to change your mind.

As we all take steps forward in life, the significance of those steps will eventually be revealed. And that is our purpose. GOD calls us to abide in HIM. And HE is a living and moving GOD. HE is not stagnant...so neither should we be stagnant. Let's keep moving and discover what life has for us. It isn't enough to sit by and say "wouldn't that be nice if that happened or if that were true." Make it happen. Make it true. Trust that GOD will guide you if you remain in HIM.

And maybe our purpose, our significance, is to learn to trust GOD and live our lives for HIM, whatever that looks like. Think about it. It really is mind blowing.

Monday, February 04, 2008

what really matters...

So some of you know about my health scare recently. If you don't, sorry I didn't tell you, but I didn't want to raise an unnecessary alarm. I went to the doctor about a week and a half ago and we found a lump in my right breast. She thought it was just a cyst but want me to get it checked out. It was something I had noticed before, but been told by a doctor that it was nothing. So naturally I get a little freaked out that now I have a doctor telling me to get it checked out.

So I have an ultrasound and schedule a consult to plan a biopsy. I was pretty freaked out for about a week, but I am much better now. All of the doctor's I have talked to haven't been worried and think it is just a benign tumor. So I'm not worried anymore.

But I started thinking, what if. What if it had been cancer. What then. And through a lot of prayer and contemplation and talking with people I came to the conclusion of, so what. We can't control some things that happen to our physical bodies and in the end, that physical condition has no eternal consequence. The only thing that matters is that GOD loves us. And how we glorify GOD during our trials and struggles is what has eternal consequence.

This isn't to say we won't get scared or mad or sad. But we can do those things and love GOD at the same time. We can acknowledge that HE is in charge and that HE knows and we don't have to.

This doesn't just have to apply to being sick. A lot of us are in places where we are wanting something more. Some different significance or some different relationship. We can want those things, definitely. But remember to glorify GOD during those circumstances. HE knows what we need and that is all that matters. Wanting something to be different isn't going to change it. But living a life that is focused on GOD and how HE wants us to live, that will change things.

Thursday, January 10, 2008

life plans...

So I turn 24 on saturday. What is that?? 24 sounds so grown up and adult and I am so far from that. I started thinking about it today and did a quick check-up on my life. Is this where I thought I would be at 24?? I ran through my old "life plan" from high school to see how I measure up to my old expectations. My life right now is not even close to what I thought it would be at this point.

While I did graduate from college, it was not the college I thought I would attend. I am not married, and definitely not to the guy I thought it was going to be. I don't own a house and Lord knows I never thought I would be in Tennessee about to move to Nashville. And then there is the teaching thing. 7 years of my life I thought I was going to be a teacher and it has been almost a year since I realized that wasn't going to work out for me.

So instead of being a William and Mary grad, Mrs. Jonathan Allen (don't worry, he knows), high school English teacher, living in my house in Virginia...

I am an alum of two rival schools, single and dealing with feelings for a guy who is proving himself to be pretty disinterested, soon to be unemployed from two jobs, and moving from Nashville after 3 or 4 months to New Orleans, where hopefully I will get a job I love and an apartment by myself that I can afford.

After all that, all I can say is...thank God our plans don't always work out.

HIS timing is perfect and mine is not. HIS plans are perfect and mine are not.

It's going to be a good year.

Friday, January 04, 2008

gonna be some changes made...

Maybe it is the spirit of the New Year or maybe I have just finally gotten my head out of my ass. But I made a major life decision on Tuesday. In late February I am moving to New Orleans for good. Or at least as "for good" as it gets in my life.

I want people to know and understand that I have no hard feelings about Nashville. I needed to move here. It was a necessary step in my life. Or maybe this is my narrative anesthetic. I could be just making up a story to make myself feel better about a decision. But I don't think so. I think moving to Nashville made the decision to move to New Orleans more significant. Before, I thought I just needed to move for a change from Colorado and now I realize that I am not wandering aimlessly. My wanderings have a purpose and an end goal. New Orleans.

I have found that a lot of people do not understand my draw to the Big Easy and honestly, it isn't something I can describe very easily. The truth of the matter is that I think anyone who wants to live in New Orleans has a mental illness, which is something I have suspected about myself for a long time. Now the diagnosis is complete. Basically, it is where I am the happiest. I have a group of peers who understand me and support me even when they don't. I have a church and a pastor who I know would do anything for me. I have a multi-generational community, that is real, not just people I say hi to on Sunday. I have a purpose in New Orleans. I can create significance down there.

I have been struggling with this idea of significance for the past year. I guess my phrase to sum up 2007 would be "what is significance?" Significance can be found anywhere. You don't need to be "changing the world" to be significant, because the truth is, if you are living your life for God, you are changing the world. You are impacting lives around you and spreading love.

For some reason I haven't been able to do that in Nashville. I have felt stifled and drawn into myself. I haven't been able to reach out the way I know I should. New Orleans gives me that freedom. I don't know if it is the people down there or the atmosphere of the city, but I feel more alive when I am in New Orleans than anywhere else. I have known that since the first time I set foot into that city a year and a half ago. It has just taken me this long to realize that it is where I should be.

How amazing, that I can know these things about myself and about my life, but not understand what steps to take. When I left New Orleans for the first time, moving there seemed like an impossible dream. Life has taken me on many different adventures since then and I feel primed for this move. I don't want to wait another minute. So I will wait two more months!!!

Sunday, December 30, 2007

the past year...

i feel so blessed because this year i get to start out in new orleans, the place where so much of my heart yearns to be. people keep asking me when i am going to move here, and i am trying not to make plans. in my thinking about this future year and whether it may or may not bring me to new orleans for good, i can't help but realize how much happened in this past year that was totally unplanned at this point a year ago.

i lived in three different places: colorado (maybe for the last time), new orleans (for the second time), and nashville (for the very first time). the circumstances that brought me to and from these places was completely GOD's planning. and i know that there was and is a purpose for each place in my life.

i grew up in my relationships. i think this past year was a significant time for me in realizing that my friendships have a purpose. while i love who my friends are, the purpose of relationship is not to just have fun. it is to recognize that GOD loves each of us and therefore we should love each other. there is a higher purpose to loving people than just "being their friend." we are called to encourage, teach, grow, and live together. sometimes this means letting go of relationships that are not glorifying to GOD and going deeper into relationships that are. it means calling each other out on hard stuff and reminding each other that GOD is bigger than it all. it means growing in our personal relationship with GOD for the purpose of sharing it with others. i feel very blessed to have the grown up relationships that i do now.

i realized that i am ready to meet my husband. before this year i was a huge huge commitment-phobe. i'm not saying i am prepared to jump into anything right this minute, but through so significant relationships in my life and the lives of my good friends i have realize that i am ready. GOD has prepared me for something, whether it comes in this next year, ten years down the road, or never, i know that my heart is in this place right now for a reason. i am ready, just waiting on GOD's timing now.

i learned what it means that GOD's timing is perfect and mine is not. a major life plan flew out the window this year. i spent the past seven years preparing myself to teach high school english, and i hated it. so everything has changed. if it had been my timing, i would have known i would hate it before taking all those classes, but GOD's timing was different. HE needed me to be in a certain place at a certain time. HE needed me to learn the lessons that i did during my student teaching. i probably would never have gone back to new orleans or moved to nashville or thought about grad school. GOD's timing is perfect. mine is not.

a lot more happened in this past year that i won't get into. what i have written is significant for me. if you should choose to read this, i hope some significance jumps from the screen into your life. if not, that's fine too.

dig it.