Choices

Well, hello! Spring semester has officially begun, and so has homework and all of the other joys of living here at APU! I don't think my life has ever been this busy before, but I wouldn't change a minute of it.

So, I have two things I would like to blog about to the world tonight. One may be about joy and the other about luck, but trust me, I will find a way to connect them together to make some semblance of sense. If not, you just get two blogs in one! In either case, lucky you!

One of the special parts about 2011 is the book I get to read from daily for the whole year. It's called Bread for the Journey by Henri Nouwen, and it's just a thought-provoking little paragraph for each day. The theme kind of progresses throughout the year, and I just finished a really cool portion about forgiveness. Definitely a fun addition to a New Year's Resolution list, and it's still January, so it's completely acceptable to get the book and start reading for the rest of the year!

This was today's:
"Joy is what makes life worth living, but for many joy seems hard to find. They complain that their lives are sorrowful and depressing. What then brings the joy we so much desire? Are some people just lucky, while others have run out of luck? Strange as it may sound, we can choose joy. Two people can be part of the same event, but one may choose to live it quite differently from the other. One may choose to trust that what happened, painful as it may be, holds a promise. The other may choose despair and be destroyed by it. What makes us human is precisely this freedom of choice."

I love this. I love how eloquently Nouwen states the obvious: life is what we make it. We can't blame circumstances we don't like on other people; life is full of choices. We can choose to be joyful, regardless of the circumstances, or get sucked into our problems and choose to live in despair. Joy is something I'm trying to choose right now, even when things aren't going my way and I want things to change. I want to remember that my painful situations hold a promise. Joy is a choice.


My next insightful excerpt is actually much longer, but I promise you it's worth the read! Come on, you read 305747209 pages for school, this should be a breeze! It's by one of my favorite artists, Jon Forman, and he has such an insightful take on luck and grace that I thought was fitting for this blog. Enjoy!

"I'm in seat 40G on a flight from Heathrow to LAX. After a couple weeks of playing rock and roll in Europe this long period of forced silence is a welcome change. International flights have become a meditation of sorts for me. Solitude. Breathing. Thinking. Forced air. Prayer. My tray table becomes a sacred temple among the transatlantic congregation -- complete with the plastic sacrament of holy bottled water. I close my eyes and try to meditate. Every sound feels louder than before -- every thought, amplified. Even the odoriferous results of my neighbor's poor bathing habits begin to play a part in the mental landscape. Today, unfortunately the nearby smell has become a centerpiece. A force to be reckoned with for rows and rows; a potent beefiness that commands my respect and a certain sense of awe. My prayers start to quiver, my inner peace is threatened. Will my grumbling stomach make it through the 12 hours test? The bigger question: will I break down and start to grumble inside? WIll the miasma destroy my meditation?

My mind wanders... I watched Braveheart the other day to gear up for a show in Scotland: good ol' William Wallace. Now there's a man's man: a fighter and a lover -- at least the Hollywood version. And yet, I'm pretty sure personal hygiene was not high up on his priority list. In fact, William Wallace probably smelled roughly like this. I close my eyes and take a deep breath... Ah, the enchanting scent of revolution, the bewitching aroma of freedom. We go to museums and pay big money to see the sights, why not smell the smells? I imagine that a lot of my heroes probably smelled like this. Maybe I'm on the wrong side of the coin here? Maybe my frequent bathing habits, (okay, relatively frequent bathing habits) have been keeping me from greatness!? I'm not sure my wife would agree with my backwards thinking on this one.

My flying partner's dubious scent has brought another radical notion to my wandering mind. Perhaps I am lucky to be sitting here. Lucky? Yes lucky. Lucky to have a nose to smell anything at all. Lucky to have lungs that function and a mind to take it all in. Lucky to be heading home. Lucky to be on an isle seat, flying high in a device beyond the wildest dreams of William Wallace. Lucky to be playing music, traveling, meeting new people, listening to other bands... it's a gift. Yeah, I'm lucky to be alive. Sure, I'm sitting next to a strongly scented feller but things could be worse. Besides, he's human soul with a story that is unfolding one day at a time -- just like my own life.

It's incredible to think of all the things that have to come together for the human body to exist at all. The ear, the eye, and yes, the nose: these are all miracles of sorts. The liver, the heart, the brain, every nerve and synapse and vein -- so many things have to go right for any of our humanity to exist at all. I take a deep breathe take in the intoxicating aroma of the miraculous. Yes, the human soul seated next to me is a walking miracle! All carbon based life forms are pretty lucky in general. The environmental needs for bipedal primates like ourselves are incredibly specific. Our planet is the only one we've ever seen like it. The perfect combination of gasses and gravitational pull and millions of other factors. I mean, what are the chances?! It's true, my potent pal and I are incredibly lucky to be here.

My friends, take a deep breath. And another. Breathe it in. Close your eyes for a moment -- you smell that? That is what luck smells like. This is the stench of luck. Dumb luck. Yes. Dumb luck, as far as I can tell there is no other kind of providence. The moment we begin to think, scheme, or deserve the situation we're in we can no longer call it luck or grace or a gift. We did not deserve to be born, but here we are. We did nothing to earn our eyes or hands or feet and yet there they are. We did not merit another breath but there it is. And all of a sudden, luck smells pretty great.

Some folks don't believe in luck. My laptop dictionary defines luck as "success (or failure) apparently brought about by chance rather than one's own actions." Sounds about right; luck is something that we don't really deserve. Some folks might get caught off by the religious connotations but that's really not what I'm concerned with. Let's think of some other terms: Grace? Undeserved kindness? Blessings? Whatever we call it, I'm pretty sure we get doses of luck more often than we'll ever know. Why don't we recognize luck when it comes our way? Well here's my theory: Luck and grace and redemption all smell pretty good. They taste good, they feel good. They are smooth and creamy and delicious. But the unlucky moments demand our attention, they stick out like... well like a sore thumb. Our eyes are drawn to the flaws. Our ears are drawn to the dissonance. And our noses are drawn to the stench.

How easily we forget about all the incredible gifts that we are given! How quickly we begin to grumble. We could call my theory "The Aroma Attention Ailment": Instead of meditating on all of the incredible gifts that I have all around me, I am bewitched by the one thing that's wrong. I am more likely to complain about what my neighbor smells like or sounds like, (he just broke into a deep guttural snore, no joke!) than to focus on the myriad goodness of my own situation. With so much luck, why do I give this one little flaw my full attention? meditation...

You say, "Jon, you're just losing your mind on a long flight." This is true, but it's the same when I try to meditate anywhere else. That one housefly on my nose. That one itch on my big toe. That one phone call that I forgot to make. That one car alarm. And these are only the unwanted distractions. Add them to the cell phone, the ball game, the e-mail, the TV -- how can there ever be inner peace within with all of these innumerable outer distractions lined up?

Sometimes the stench around us helps to wake us up. The uncomfortable potency drives us to make the world a better place. We see what is wrong around us and try to fix it. We push to find a cure for cancer. We fight for human rights, animal rights. We look for ways to preserve our natural environment. We invent deodorant. It's true, sometimes our tendency to focus on the wrong becomes a fight for a better place. But most of the time my concerns are much more self-serving. I'm fired up because someone cut me off on the freeway rather than being furious about the horrors of human trafficking. And worse yet, seems I'd rather complain about my luck than try to fix it.

I sip on a black coffee in seat 40G and ponder it all. Up from the turbulent bouquet of my transcontinental temple another question arises: Why is it that the folks who have every reason to complain rarely do so? I'm sure you've met these types before. Maybe they have cancer, or they've lost their legs. These are your friends who have every reason to grumble, every reason to be bitter and yet, they complain less than the rest of us. They run races with with prosthetic limbs. They get degrees in spite of their disabilities. They seem to be fixated on all that is good in their life. It seems to be an incredible mystery. The folks who have the most complain the most. Why is it that the BMW-car-seat kid is miserable in Orange County and the dirt-football-field kid is content in Ensenada? Why would the one who has less (materially) have a greater propensity to call himself lucky?

Maybe luck is a choice. Yeah, maybe luck is a choice. A choice to be thankful for the myriad blessings that you have rather than complain about the few smells that are unpleasant. Seems like luck doesn't pour out like it does on the beer commercials: the young, rich, good looking, famously lucky few turn out to complain more often than their "unlucky" contemporaries. Maybe luck is a choice chosen by those whose roots sink deep into the grounds of community, sacrifice, family, worship and service. Yes, maybe luck is a choice.

"But what about the pain?" you say, "What about that awful smell?" It's true, we will all feel pain in this life. Most of my songs are driven by pain, fueled by discomfort. But I still think luck is a choice. How can I be so sure? I'm not. But I've seen glimpses of this choice before. I've seen it through the eyes of a child in South Africa, orphaned by the death of both of his parents to HIV AIDS. I've seen it in India through the eyes of the Dalit: the outcasts -- worth less than cattle in the eyes of the caste system for thousands of years. And I've seen it in my own back yard, through the eyes of the homeless adolescents at Stand Up For Kids in Oceanside. I've seen the choice for hope. the choice for joy. The choice to care for the kids who have even less than they do. To rejoice in unlikely situations. The choice to rise up and be counted among the lucky.

At Stand Up For Kids I've seen her eyes shine with joy when she gets a cool pair of donated jeans. How lucky! Yes, her mom might be in prison. Maybe, she doesn't know where her dad is. Chances are she has nowhere to sleep tonight. But you see a resilience in her eyes. A fire. A spark. How lucky, a pair of jeans that fit! How lucky, my friend is here! How lucky. And us. We unfortunate souls. Complaining about our lukewarm coffee, about our cellular service, about the smell of this airborne neighbor of mine. At the Bro-Am I met a young man named Sean who graduated from high school while battling homelessness. He went to Haiti a few weeks later to help kids that were less fortunate. He chose to call himself lucky and overcome his situation. He chose to call himself lucky and help other less fortunate folks out.

In all of my years I've never heard any of the aforementioned kids complain about their situation. Not even in passing And yet most conversations I overhear around the world have grumbling overtones. We're so good at it. It comes so naturally. And besides we've had years of practice. If you're dressing for the occasion, grumbling is always appropriate. I am not throwing stones! I've spent an embarrassing amount of time grumbling better than anyone. But I'd like turn in my grumbling rights. I'd like to burn the authorization that I was born with, the authorization to complain, moan, and sigh heavily. I'd like to surrender my weapons of privilege. Here and now, I lay them down. Maybe their ashes float gracefully in that exquisite air that lingers between 40G and 40F.

Yes, we're lucky to be alive. And this is what luck smells like."

I just love the way Jon wrote this. It's so true-I feel SO convicted reading this. How often do I get stuck in such a negative mindset that I completely forget how many good things I have in my life. In a sea of blessings and grace, I choose to focus on the one thing in my life that isn't going my way and blow it out of proportion so my life seems like it will never be perfect. And maybe it's time to realize it never will be perfect. That's what joy is for- to find a promise in the pain, in the stuff we hate. My favorite part from Jon's article is this:

"Maybe luck is a choice. Yeah, maybe luck is a choice. A choice to be thankful for the myriad blessings that you have rather than complain about the few smells that are unpleasant...Maybe luck is a choice chosen by those whose roots sink deep into the grounds of community, sacrifice, family, worship and service. Yes, maybe luck is a choice."

We have so many choices in life. We can sit back and think everyone else is just high on life and living good because they're lucky. Or we can realize that we all have the opportunity to live a life full of joy, and luck and grace. But it's ours to choose. We choose to have joy in our circumstances. We choose to be thankful for all of our blessings instead of focusing on what's not perfect in our eyes. Our lives have the potential to be overflowing with joy and luck-it's up to us whether or not we will choose to accept it.

Blessed

I'd like to think that I'm a typically positive person. I'm no sugar sweet full-time optimist who thinks everything is butterflies and cotton candy 24/7, but I tend to look at life with a glass half full kind of outlook. And some times in particular there are moments that really make me stop and think about just how blessed I am. At the risk of sounding like I'm high on sunshine and the like, I would like to take a quick minute and reflect on how much I have to be thankful for.

Today might have been one of my favorite days of my freshman year at APU so far! ...Woah. Did I really just say that?! I don't want to blow the grandness of this day out of proportion, but I really don't think I'm exaggerating on this one. From the second I woke up, it was a perfect day. It would not only give me carpal tunnel to try and type everything that happened today, but I just feel like the details would lose your interest since you just kind of had to be there for them. From the beach to chicken and waffle adventures in Hollywood and a gorgeously amazing stunning OHMYGOSH beautiful sunset at the Griffith observatory (can you tell I'm obsessed with sunsets?!), I couldn't help but stop today and think about how incredibly blessed I am. Not only am I in such an exciting city blessed with the chance to attend an amazing school, but I am surrounded by some of the most amazing people I have ever met. It's unbelievable to me how I got so blessed. I couldn't have asked for anything better.

My eyes were opened today when I was watching the sun set over Southern California and I glanced around at the people I was with. There is nowhere else I would have rather been, and I couldn't imagine spending that moment without them. They have shown me true friendship and there is no doubt that God has placed these people in my life and all I can do is stand amazed and thank Him for blessing me way beyond what I deserve. I never thought I would find friends like these, and God continues to show me how little I know in comparison to Him.

God has blessed me so deeply, and all I have to offer to him is the most humble of thanks.

Meg

Day 30: Brittney

It's the last day of the Photo Challenge! I'm currently waiting for my connecting flight to California in Denver, and the timing seems perfect for my final picture blog. Hurrah! Here goes nothin'!

DAY 30: A picture of someone you miss.



This lovely lady has been a friend for most of high school and we have had some awesome times together at camp over the years. She is not only the most outgoing person I know, but she has the sweetest personality and everyone just loves her! I'm so glad we've had so many fun times together, but I also wish we could be together more than just once a year! I miss this crazy amazing girl lots, and I'm hoping we will see each other again this summer!

I'm keeping my fingers crossed that my flight doesn't get cancelled due to the blizzard I'm currently stuck in! I haven't had the best luck in this airport over the years...

Meg

Days 28 and 29

Whew...who would have thought BREAK would end up being such a busy time?! Yesterday was really crazy so I'll post a picture for yesterday along with today's!

DAY 28: A picture of something you're afraid of.



Eww! Even Googling an image of these makes me shiver. I am really really afraid of bugs, even small ones. I just don't like the idea of them crawling around mostly unnoticed, going places they oftentimes should never go. It creeps me out thinking about them crawling on me when I'm asleep! I just freak out with bugs. It's a proven fact.

DAY 29: A picture that can always make you smile.



Not only are these people awesome, the night in general was just so fun! I loved getting all dressed up and going to hang out with good friends...this picture just captures so many memories for me and it just makes me smile when I see it!

LAST DAY AT HOME UNTIL MAY! So weird. Next time I'll be back the snow will be gone and the summer will be underway! Oh, life...

Meg

Day 27: Family

DAY 27: A picture of yourself and a family member.



I adore this picture. If I could blow it up to wall size, I would hang it up. ...No I wouldn't. That's creepy. I'll just leave it at I really like this picture. A lot. We did a kids photo shoot for my parents as their Christmas present this last year and this was right after a snowball fight we had! (I won) While this picture of my handsome younger brother is stinkin' adorable, it doesn't capture the tumble I took into the snow right after because Pat couldn't balance me on his back. So glad we got this shot before the fall happened, though! It was such a cool gift to give these pictures to my parents...my mom even cried! That's when you know you struck gold on gifts! :)

I won't bother being sappy about how much I love my brother...been there, done that. He is just AWESOME!

Meg

Day 26: Laughing

DAY 26: A picture of something that means a lot to you.

You know what means a lot to me? My friends. And having friends you can be stupid with and laugh with until your stomach hurts. Having those types of people in your life that are as ridiculous as you are and don't judge you when you do stupid things. It means the world to me to have friends who I'm close to that understand who I am and love me, quirks and all. There is something so special about laughing with good friends, and it makes such a difference in my life having people to laugh with. And especially as I'm caught between two worlds of college and my home, it's so nice knowing that I can come home for breaks and get together with friends and just catch up and laugh and be stupid with them. You know they're true friends when you eat pretzels for five hours and talk about our middle school crushes and our favorite TV shows. These moments I wish I could take snapshots of my life and replay them throughout my life so I never forget the friendship I've found. I just wish I could capture all of our times together and keep them forever! It is so rare to find friends like these, and I thank God everyday that I'm blessed with their company and the laughter we create each time we're together.

Meg

Day 25: My day

DAY 25: A picture of your day.



Hmm...how believable is it that I took this actual picture today? I mean, the fact that it is sunny in this picture doesn't seem too convincing, since the sun only makes an appearance in this state like twice a year. Hey, maybe today was one of the two lucky days! And, if you looked close enough, I'm sure you would totally find Daisy, my lovable old Volvo station wagon in the parking lot. Yep. I'm starting to believe it myself!

Regardless of the validity of me actually taking this picture, this is a legit shot of the Whole Foods I went to today with my mom. Isn't it a beauty?! I just love this store. It is like Disneyland for food! You can enter a starving human being and leave a stuffed, happy individual simply from the samples they have scattered around the store. I hadn't been to the one in Pittsburgh in ages, so it was super fun to go and shop and just enjoy the wonder of that place. The actual highlight of the trip was walking back to the car at 11 A.M. and almost being hit by a drunk guy in an old beater van. Now THAT was thrilling!

After my adventure into the wonderful food oasis of Whole Foods, I hung out for a little bit then attempted to clean my room. (FAIL for two reasons. One: it is a daunting task after not cleaning it for multiple weeks. Two: I had a laptop and a season of The Office on my computer...you can guess how that story ends.) After that fiasco, I went to the mall with my friend Sam and we shopped and ate and even squeezed a movie in. It was lovely! I just love that girl.

My day. In a nutshell. Hey, I thought it was a great Tuesday. It's my last one at home for a very long time!

Meg