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.