I was trapped in an elevator for 20 minutes. This is what my face looks like when its trapped in an elevator.

Why I want to do this.

I can't remember the first time I felt the urge to be a pastor but I know that I wasn't the first of my friends to feel it. Had I been the first I may have saved myself a few years of soul searching but things like that make us who we are.

I think that I felt I was called to work with the church at a young age but I brushed the assumption aside, deciding that it was probably a byproduct of how much of my life was centered around my church community. Although now I see my devoted nature to my church youth group a mix of my actual enthusiasm for attending worship and my good fortune of being best friends with two of the girls who I grew up with in the community at the time I decided that it was probably just coincidence.

'Just coincidence' would become my mantra for a few years. My biggest personal argument against my own inner voice (and more importantly, God's voice) became a factor after those two closest friends from church declared their own personal interest in being pastors when we were older. I think that they were freshman in high school and I was a sophomore. That's crazy, I though, you can't want to be a pastor when both of them want to be one. You're just giving into the power of suggestion. You spend year after year growing up and sharing your secrets, ideas and favorite snakes with these girls and now you think that you want to share careers. You don't really want to do this, you're just following the crowd. I assured myself that this was one profession where it was not a suitable idea to simply follow the crowd, and I was right because its not. But I was wrong about myself. I wasn't following the crowd, we were just on the same road.

The first person to ever call me out as a possible future pastor was Ed Wolf. I remember exactly what he said because what he told me was directed at not only me but my dear friend Ashlyn, who had been the first to confess her longing to become a pastor. “One of you girls has to go to seminary!” he said in his cheerful bellow, “I'd like for both of you to, but at least one.” I was around 16 and she was 15. We laughed it off, Ashlyn taking the comment more seriously than me. I kept with my cycle of doubt. Pastor Ed's comment would resurface on my mind occasionally but it would be a long time before I received another outward call. I had to struggle with my inward call first.

My senior year of high school, still extremely skeptical of my call I wrote my first ever sermon. It was for youth Sunday, and as a graduating senior I had been allowed the honor. This was it, was I going to enjoy writing this sermon? Was I going to hate it? What if I did hate it...what then? While I realize that the sermon certainly does not make the preacher my high school self put extreme emphases on the subject. Fortunately I loved it. I admit that I've not done it again since but I have written a few sermons for my own personal practice reasons. But form that moment I decided that this career, this mission, was worth some consideration.

When I went to Affirm for YAMI I was shocked to find out I was the only one who had signed up and relived to know that they were going to let me in. Matt Simkions would take me by surprise that summer. Without a single mention of the subject from me he jumped me with the question one day, “Have you ever considered being a pastor?” Um, well yeah, yeah I had. But I hadn't been called out on it in three or four years. I supposed I didn't show the eagerness of my piers and used it as another reason that I wasn't worth of the position. I didn't need to do this, I didn't look like I wanted to how could I really want to? I realize how dumb that sounds now but at the time it was pivotal to my argument.

But why shouldn't I? People come to me with their problems all the time. I'm excellent with confidentiality. Sick people don't freak me out and neither does inter-religious dialog. It had never been a question of whether or not it was worth doing it. It was a question of whether or not I was worthy of the job. It just took a dose of reality; I never will be. And that doesn't matter because that's where grace comes in. That's where the call comes from. Extraordinary things from extra-ordinary people.

Now I help Pastor Jack at my church at home and I meet up with Pastor Eric for coffee in Knoxville. I'm sure it sounds like I'm still just considering this but now I know this is what I want to do.

I think I owe you some photos.

I totally forgot, here they are!

I did it.

I filed a noise complaint against the people upstairs. I thought it better than contacting Korea. as that would end badly for me as well as the rave upstairs.

I'm almost completely packed.

I'm almost ready for New York. I hope everything goes according to plan. Hopefully I'll have lots of photos to share when I get back!

* On a sadder note I really hope that the people in Japan are doing better. I can't imagine something like that happening. :/

Hey, look at that!

Look at me changing the photo on my blog and being all productive and junk.

What do you mean go do my homework? I have no idea what you're talking about. Geze.

Inspirational quotes that could actually mean something.

Most of the time I just blow off inspirational quotes. Its just not my thing. (Not to say, of course, that I don't pour over those pretty photos on the internet with the text on them. Because I'll fess up to doing that a lot.) I just saw a quote that said "You were born because you are going to be important to someone."

How perfect it that? Its a no strings attached, you were born to be loved, have a happy existence because you were made to quote. It's beautiful! So often I see quotes that have the capability to leave people with feeling of inadequate means. Are you feeling down? Cheer up! You're the only person that can be happy for you!

Other motivational posters proclaim that we must be the change we see in the world. (I'd like to take a moment to say that's a personal favorite of mine but that fact is not conclusive to my point so please don't hate.) As cool (and true) as that can be it tends to freeze people in their tracks. So many of my friends have told me that they don't do things that they think would make a difference because of the idea that they believe they would be the only one trying to make a difference. Talk about fighting a losing battle.

But this quote, this quote is different. "You were born because you are going to be important to someone." Not because you have to mop up oil spills with your hair, or because you need to chain yourself to a redwood and save the universe. You can do all of those things, and by all means, do participate in things that you see as helpful to the world around you. But know that you were put on earth in an act of love in order to be an act of love. An extension of God's love.

The Flux Capasotor is broken!

So every time something goes wrong on my car I decide that the thing that is wrong is the flux capasator. It really makes the whole car braking down thing a lot more interesting. It can literally make the worst car issue more fun. Did your radiator bust? Flux capasator. Did your fan belt slip off? Flux capasator came loose. Did your starter brake? Looks like you need a new flux capasator.

It's endless fun. And it kinda irritates your dad who wants you to actually know what's wrong with your car so in the future you'll be able to tell mechanics what's what. (But I'll still tell them it's the flux capasator.)

Learning

So over the winter break I got together with some old friends and we were reading over some of the things that we had written during high school. I've just realized what an interesting experience it was to go back and read what I had written two years ago. My friends and I shared a notebook where we would share our problems and our ideas and give out advice and encouragement. Seems pretty cool, right?

All the normal stuff was as I remembered it, lots of high school drama and lots of advice but there were a few surprises. I did not remember a page in one of the notebooks where we had all written down what we believed the meaning of life was. Now, it's kinda embarrassing to think about what your seventeen year old self would have said about the meaning of life but I can assure you that all of us there got to re-read what we had to say at the time. I was surprised to find out that I had given a really good answer. Like really good. I really don't remember exactly what I wrote because I read it two weeks ago but I can assure you that we were all kinda shocked at how good of an answer it was.

So I guess that the basic point of this is that I'm wondering when I stopped thinking about things like that? But at the same time I know that I never did stop thinking about those things, I just stopped writing them down. I still have these really strong opinions but I don't feel I have time to write them down. I also don't have the time to read the types of books that I was reading at the time. Random but strangely insightful books that made be grow spiritually.

I think that the biggest shocker about any new social situation is meeting all of these new and bright people who just completely throw you off your guard. You'll get caught up in how intelligent they are and forget the good ideas that you've had yourself. I've heard the same thing from a few of my friends who got a little intimidated when they came to college and then realized that all their new friends and acquaintances were budding theological geniuses.

It seems like the best way to handle a transition like that is to hold on to your core while adding to your insight. You know that there are ideas that you have that are good, that are interesting and that dons't mean that you shouldn't listen to what others have to say, because that's how you grow. Hopefully there is some sort of balance in between knowing yourself and learning from others where you can find a confidence to accompany you while your listing to everything overly intelligent that everyone else has to say.

Everyone has their brilliant moments, so don't overlook them. Especially not your own.

Sleepy Me

I have decided that there are two of me. I have named these two different people Sleepy Me and Myself. Myself is just normal non sleep deprived me who knows for the most part what she is doing and is able to remember what she herself dose. Sleepy me has no real idea what is going on but tries hard to keep up with the plans that she puts into action.

Sleepy Me tries to be helpful, she really dose. But I'm afraid that it's hard for her to be helpful to regular me when I can never remember what it is that she has done. Sleepy Me's latest misadventure was hiding my watch from me. I know that losing track of your watch shouldn't be the end of the world in our age of cell phones and ipods which display the time of day eternally from tiny glowing screens but it really bothered me when I lost my watch a week or two ago.

I knew who had last held the watch. It was Sleep Me, at 4 am trying to be helpful by taking the watch off before she went to bed because she knew I don't like to sleep with it on because it hurts. What I could not remember upon waking was what sleepy me had done with the watch. Which was a problem.

After looking for the watch for 48 hours and turning my room and purse upside down I found my watch in my computer case. All that I can conclude is that Sleepy Me decided that the one place I was sure to find my watch was in the case with the computer that I use a lot. Which seems to make sense but it just didn't work out that way. Like I said, Sleepy Me tires.

Hiding in the candle isle.

So every Christmas I have to go shopping with both of my parents to help them shop for one another. This seems to forever leave me in the worst positions, including but not limited to:

• Being stuck in an isle full of cranky people trying to pick what color jacket to buy someone while none of us can actually reach said jacket because there are to many people are trying to reach it.
• In the most crowded shampoo isle I have ever seen in my life. Who needs shampoo for Christmas and why is all of the White Rain hairspray my grandmother uses gone?
• In that really crowded isle with all of the junk bath time gifts you buy for people who you don't know that well but are obligated to buy a present for. (Or maybe you know someone who loves three dollar bath soap. Who am I to judge?)
• Hiding in the candle isle.

I wind up hiding in the candle isle because that is the last place most people go when they are Christmas shopping. This is both convenient and fun for me because it lets me smell all the candles, create random flower arrangements and hide from the hoards of Christmas crazy people.

So if you need somewhere to hide in Wall-mart before Christmas try the candle isle. (Unless I'm there first. I call dibs.)

Christmas Pageant

I will be the first to tell you that there is no bigger critic of my small church’s Christmas pageant than me. In my humble opinion our pageant is a necessary evil that is always scraped together at the very last moment in order to please parents and and grandparent while annoying me to death. (Of course, I have been known to be prone to dramatics.)

I do not enjoy the bath robes, the people who read their lines from the paper that they got for the first time ten minutes ago, or the fact that I myself can never seem to play my part correctly aside from my own practicing. I do not like the choir arrangements that are both cheep and have poor musical arrangements and I absolutely abhor the hand bells. (Because no one can play them. No. One.)

Aside from all of my personal objections I understand that this pageant is not about how well we go through the actions of how the birth of Christ was described in a historic and holy text. (Because believe you me, if it were about talent and presentation someone would surly come in and shut us down.) It’s a lot less about presentation and how cute the kids look and a whole lot more about how we are going to give thanks for another year that we have lived in our lives underneath the grace that is Jesus Christ.

Because even though it’s not really anywhere near when he was probably born it’s important and even endearing that we can keep up a tradition that is so obviously flawed and painful for all parties involved. It’s important, it’s memorable, and it’s another reason to be glad that Jesus was born for us, not so that we could run around covered in glitter during the worst play ever preformed ever, but so that we can take a moment out of the church year where we don’t have to feel guilty, sad, or repressed and be glad that something has been done for us. We have been given freely a gift of redemption.

Sideways Christmas Trees.

My family's Christmas tree is leaning. This is normally not a problem. as I like to pretend it means we're the type of artsy people who find such a thing abstract and exhilarating. Even though we are nothing like that it's still nice to pretend.

There was no real issue until the tree fell onto mom the other day. She was nowhere near as amused as me. Part of the problem was that she was under it when it fell. She had been rearranging presents with ought the thought that they might possibly be what was holding up the thought that they might be what was keeping the tree in an upright position.

It's back upright now, but the damage has been done. So, you know, I think we might get a new tree.

The storm of the century is coming.

My part of the county is in the pink on the weather map. Pink has been saved to represent the scary part of the snow storm that is coming to eat me. The largest part of the storm is still in middle Tennessee and headed my way.

The news is doing nothing to pacify me from my fear of dying of boredom while being snowed into my house in the middle of nowhere. The anchorman told me to make sure that I have a "snow kit." I'm not sure if this is a kit made of snow, or perhaps a collection of things to help me survive a snow storm. I'm not entirely sure what such a kit should be composed of but unless said kit includes salsa I want nothing to do with it.

Parking Meters

So I already posted my photographs from First Friday but while I was there with three of my best friends I realized that I had gotten used to the idea of the parking meter. I was leading everyone down the sidewalk towards the old city when Ashley stopped the group to admire a parking meeter. She was really excited about it. Ashley was all "This is a parking meter!" and I was all "Correct!" Then I realized that this time two years ago I was really excited to see them too.

I would see a parking meter and become overly excited. Obviously this was a good parking place, you had to pay for it. PLUS the idea of the meter itself was so cool. To think that they had made something like that just in order to take change in order for you to park there. It was an incredible amount of awesome.

Now I see parking meters for the thinly veiled evil that they truly are. They just seem awesome if you've never seen one before, but they really exist to make your life difficult when the garage is down. The great thing about Knoxville is that on nights and weekends the parking garages are free, so when you can't park in one of them it's extra sucky to have to pay a meter.

This is what happens when I try to study.

This is what happens when I try to study with my computer.

On the survival of mankind.

It has recently come to my attention that the survival of all humans lies in the hands of girls who wear shorts in the wintertime and hipsters who want to be Davy Crockett.

I have had a revelation. The girls who wear shorts in 28 degree weather and manage not to look cold are actually going to save humanity. But this will only happen if they mate with hipsters that like to farm.

Now, I know that none of that made any sense, so let me elaborate. The girls in shorts are obviously a new species of human. They are able to withstand lower temperatures with minimal clothing. This will come in handy during the next ice age when humans have little time to make clothing and have no means of electricity to keep themselves warm.

I have also noted that several males walk around in the same weather as the girls with no coat in short sleeves and shorts. They, however, look cold. They must be inferior. Because of this I have started categorizing those who wear shorts into “specimen” and “non acceptable specimen” categories. Those who do not flinch and have obviously not been working out will be quality breeding stock.

For breeding partners I have chosen the farming hipster. My roommate informs me that these are people who can not only farm, but also find themselves quite at home with no electricity and a v-neck shirt. (I myself can grow things but fear a lack of electrical energy, making myself a “non acceptable specimen.”) These specimen's dedication to growing food for survival and not depending on 'the man' for their energy needs will make them a useful people during the next ice age.

Should the two specimens successfully create a hybrid we will be able to save humanity from the next ice age. The resulting human will be able to sustain cold temperatures in minimal clothing while growing all of it's own food and producing it's on energy. We're going to be ok guys, we're going to be ok.

I don't understand. I really don't.

First Friday!

Yesterday I went downtown and did my normal first Friday thing, but this time I had a camera, recorder and a cause.

Conversations with my bladder.

Just to set the scene for you imagine me in my bed in my dorm room as herds of what I can only describe as water buffalo wearing high heeled shoes run up and down the hall at 2:30 am because it's ladies night and that's when the water buffalo put on their heels and go dance. (It only makes sense.)

So here I lay and all of a sudden my bladder interrupts my frustrations toward the water buffalo.

Bladder: Hey! Can we go to the bathroom?

Me: No, there are watter buffalo outside wearing heels and I"m afraid that if I go out there I'll kill them.

Bladder: That's a fair thought, but we're still going. Nice try though.

Me: No, I'm serious, we are not going.

Bladder: How attached are you to this bedding and your sense of dignity?

Me: Fine, but if I kill the water buffalo it's your fault.