Reflections & Resolutions….

res·o·lu·tion

ˌrɛzəˈluʃən/[rez-uh-loo-shuhn]

–noun

1.  a resolve or determination: to make a firm resolution to do something.

2. the act of resolving or determining upon an action or course of action, method, procedure, etc.

3. the mental state or quality of being resolved or resolute; firmness of purpose.

4. a solution, accommodation, or settling of a problem, controversy, etc.

I don’t do “life update” blogs that often, I mostly have just blathered on and on about random things, so this is awkward for me to type. At any rate, as you probably guessed from the title, I’m making some resolutions for the new year.  I know I’m late on the bandwagon for this, but I figure that my late start could be forgiven as most people have bailed on any effort towards their resolutions for 2011 already anyway. Bummer dudes.

As trite as making resolutions is, I made up my mind that I would at least give a few “a good go” this year. I thought I’d give myself a few weeks to really think about what these little adventures in behavior modification should be. My list is pretty epic. It’s more like a Bucket List than anything but, what can you do?

2010,  made me aware of some things about myself that I’m not entirely impressed with.  Somethings, I’m proud of, but somethings…not so much. There are goals that as of today, my 25th Birthday, I haven’t even cracked into.  Some I’ve all but given up on.  I’ve realized that the thing getting in the way of me getting to where I know I need to be, is me. So…here’s my list for the year. I don’t expect these all to resolve in a year, but I will damn well begin the process this year!

* Stop defining myself by anything other than Jesus.  – It’s just too damn hard to be a Tetris piece all the time. I define myself by my family’s expectations, by my political party, by my age, my gender, by the money I have and don’t have, by the relationships I am in or not. All else is nonsense.

*Fall in love with eating and making good food. - I have a cooking twitch. I like to cook. I must explore this and learn as much as I can in this year.

*Make Music.  – In my stupid poorness, I’ve sold off all my musical instruments. None of which I could play anymore. This makes me sad. My goal is to learn to play the piano this year.

*Become a “glass-half-full” girl. - This one is going to take some work. Pessimism runs deep in these veins and it gets in the way of good things. I’m going to do my best to not be so damn dark all the time. Pray for me. lol

*Get back to school.   – Don’t worry, I’ll update the name of the blog when this one happens.

* Stop drinking bad beer. -  I live in Duluth, this is completely do-able!

Alright 2011, let’s get comfy. We have some work to do!

The Joy Division

A good friend of mine recently sent me  a podcast from Iconocast of an interview with Dr. Cornel West.  In the interview Dr. West discussed Social Movements in America and spoke heavily of the lack of fire and passion in the modern American Church for the poor and marginalized. As I was listening to his very lyrical and poetic comments to questions, Dr. West made a tiny comment, that to me, resonates to the very heart of this lack of true progress towards Jesus’ commandments for humanity.

When asked how to respond to oppression, Dr. West said: “There is no doubt…that if you don’t have Joy, you’re not in love.  That Joy is the fruit of love.  That if people are living joyless lives, they have to have the courage and the freedom to love in order to have access to Joy.”

This got me thinking about the complete and utter lack of Joy that I see in not only my fellow Christians but in most Americans.  It challenged my heart to think about what would happen if we all managed to get up the courage to be brave and love with no conditions. To build up our fellow-man without a thought of what it would do for us personally.

I also caved to my impulse of being critical of my fellow Christians. I wondered why, that if we believe in  loving, self-sacrificing  God, we could be so joy-less and out of love with him. How we could live, eyes turned from the poor and broken-spirited.  How we could be so not full of boundless Joy, that a large portion of us ascribe the violent, and hateful “End Times” theology that has run rampant in the modern Church, leaving us bitter, angry and cold to our neighbors and God’s creation.  How we could drop the ball so far as to think that we as American Christians are some how privileged and “special” enough to be above Christ’s call for radical, and barrier breaking love.

And how on earth, have depression, anxiety and melancholy bound our hands from receiving and giving this love?

Oh we of little faith.

I think these things and want to confess that I am very guilty of everything I just described.  I personally go through intense bouts of anger, depression, anxiety and melancholy. All  leaving me paralyzed to Joy. All leaving me with a bitterness towards loving people. Towards ultimately,  loving God.

But, I’ve found, that in pressing into the hope and wisdom of God, in embracing love and giving love, somehow, things just iron themselves out. Grace falls upon me.  It frees me to be who I was created to be, it frees me to love and it frees me to feel Joy, even when by all definitions, I should feel anything but. I see individuals who have lives, completely enlightened in this way. People who have absolutely nothing in terms of possessions. Who are sick, who have lost loved ones etc. But they have LOVE and JOY beyond comprehension. It’s mind-blowing.

So I say we stop letting joy divide we Christians. Let it unify us and pull us all from our deep, wasteful slumbers. Embrace the frightening, incomprehensible and all-encompassing love that we identify ourselves by and get shit done.

Sorry, it got too heavy, even for my liking, there for a while. Had to throw in a curse word to lighten things up!

Done with my mental chewing gum for the day.

Ah, check out this Colbert link. I’ve watched this one a lot lately, its fabulous and hilarious as per usual with The Report.  I think it ties in nicely with my rambling.

Full interview with Dr. West.

A Brief Apology

It’s been a long time since I’ve written. For those of you who care….I’m sorry. I’m a bit out of writing-shape.  Here’s to a new year of adventure!

Lindsay

Neo-Feminist Rant 2.0: Life In Post-Feminism America

Now, I should start off by clarifying my title by saying that I do not believe that the Feminist movement of the past fifty years has completely come to a close, but I will say that it is in it’s twilight (Seriously, why can’t I even TYPE that word with out twitching a little). We, being my generation, are riding on the success and failures of our mothers and grandmothers (And those really awesome Fathers and Grandfathers as well) and live in a world much different, much better than we will ever truly, understand. Even though incredibly over due, the drastic social changes that happened within a short, generational period, have left a unique mark upon women my age. I’ve noticed, personally, this mark came in the form of feelings that I must prove myself. That I must show ‘the boys’ that I could do things even though I was a girl.

This philosophy started, naturally, where the trial runs of ‘feminine’ and ‘masculine’ first begin to rear their ugly heads – the playground. It began simply with attempting to try and chicken fight any of the boys that challenged me on the monkey bars, then it grew into who could get hit the hardest and not cry. (side note: this was the point in time where I started to “flirt” by hitting- needless to say this never worked out). I also came to know the names “Tomboy” and “Dike” quiet well. By the time I hit 5^th grade, I was a frequent on the flag football field at recess. This, not because I loved the game, but simply, to put the boys in their place. I was horrible at football, but I truly wanted to be known as “The Girl Who Can Play Football……Adequately” This all ended in a single game, in a single recess, when, after realizing I had played an entire game with my fly down, I was dismissed by the boys when a random (pansy) voice called from the crowd: “Eww! Don’t you have to go learn how to put on eyeliner or something?”

I cried.

I was not only humiliated, but I was also alone. All this time I had spent proving myself (or running about looking like I was proving myself) to the boys, I had stopped hanging out with the people who shared my genitalia. I had no idea how to properly put on eye make-up then, and still, to this day I don’t, much to the dismay of my Esthetician mother. (Sorry Mom!)

After the wounds of my youth healed a bit, my thoughts on the subject changed when I realized the “strong female” template I had tried so desperately to shove myself into, wasn’t reality. That underneath this movement of equality, was a compromise that women sadly seemed to have given into without knowing. That to become equal, we somehow had to overpower men, and to overpower men, we had to become more like them. Become suit-wearing CEO’s, to perpetuate male stereotypes of aggressiveness and over-ambitiousness.

Perhaps I am naive in saying this, but this idea seems to be a cop-out of truly reaching equality, an equality that doesn’t sacrifice identity. I am a woman, and I shouldn’t have to “play boy or man” in order to succeed in life. I should be a woman, who because I am human, and have the ability to do so, should reach towards my goals.

Man, this has me all worked up… I’m going to go bake some cookies.

“The Importance of Being A Theater Nerd” – A Memoir

There is something that’s very peculiar about “Theater People”. Anyone who has spent anytime on a stage, has a certain air about them. We stand out like sore thumbs at times. I say “we” because I am a self-proclaimed “Theater Nerd” I have been in a few productions, and seem to posses this constant urge to make people laugh.  It may come off as pompousness, or just wanting to be the center of attention ALL of the time, but what it boils down to is the creating of  fearlessness and boldness that comes only when you have been alone under a spotlight. It’s this idea of going outside ones comfort zone, in an attempt  get things done. I learned these things while in high school theater and in my time in community theater. I discovered how to be able to push through mistakes (as there have been many on stage, of my doing), take criticism and build from it something new. A set of skills that, in any walk of life, are both empowering and priceless.

The always full of fun, Stephen Colbert once said in an interview after being asked about his theatrical history, said that “There is no status I wouldn’t surrender for a joke.” I try to keep this in mind when I go through day-to-day life. You , cannot live life afraid of looking like a fool, or you will do nothing. Theater has more than anything though, made me okay with being a silly person. In knowing there are other people out there, like me, with a lot of creative energy (perhaps its just ADD and I don’t want to admit it, I don’t know) and are not afraid to dance about on a stage, looking like an idiot, in order to tell a story, to make a difference, makes me confident that humanity will work out it’s bullshit.
(Dramatic ending to that paragraph you say? Would you expect anything less from a theater nerd?)

Neo-Feminist Rant 1.0/ Book Review

I work at a book store. I am surrounded by books and many, many delightful little distractions that keep me busy while I probably should be, oh I don’t know: cleaning something, or paying attention to customers.  Anyway, while I was making myself look busy, I ran across this book: Flow: The Cultural Story of Menstruation. Needless to say, it kept me adequately distracted for most of my shift this week.

Flow, explains centuries of practices surrounding the PERIOD. It also highlights the most crazy and scary products marketed to women I have ever seen. For example: Did you know that Lysol used to market itself not only as something to freshen your bathroom with but also as a douche/form of birth control? Yeah! Wrap your head around that one.

What really blew me away though was, after reading through the section on the invention of the adhesive strip (Thank GOD for that little piece of technology) I realized that feminine hygiene products,  somehow set apart from other hygiene products like toilet paper, paper towels and hand soap, are seen as “luxury items” and therefore subject to tax.  If you also hadn’t noticed, they are not given out freely like other hygiene products in public bathrooms.

I have to wonder why? How is a period , different from any other excretion of the human body? It happens less often than most of the other ones, but it happens to nearly all women, more than half of the population of the earth might I add, and yet the availability of products that assist women in staying clean and healthy are select and are overall, more expensive than their urine and feces cleaning counterparts. (Run-on, deal with it. )

It angers my slightly.

It angers me even more though, that this points out that we still, as a society, have not come to grips with the idea of the period. It happens people, get over it. If it didn’t you wouldn’t be reading this.

Two bitter posts. I must be getting my period.

Lindsay

The Sociology of Retail

So in my many adventures in the wacky world of retail, I’ve discovered (didn’t take me long) that people are, on average, pretty ignorant of the those around them. I’m going to take a guess that it’s not out of malice that I get treated like a vending machine for 6 hours at a time, but that people simply just don’t care.  I conducted a tiny experiment this last week while I was serving up Starbucks, and when asking for a customer’s order, I looked directly into their eyes and greeted them with a “hello!” or what have you.   It was amazing to see the varying expressions I received. Like I said, on average people are jerks, so on occasion, I did recieve a mirrored smile and stare and we’d share a moment. But more often than not, my greeting was mumbled in return or simply ignored and the menu above me was the chosen visual target.

Now, I’m not saying that I want people to stare at me and tell me their hopes and dreams, when I know damn well all they want is a latte and to get the hell out of the store. But it would be nice to somehow know that this person knows customer service people are making an effort to give them a personable experience, that we are in fact people. That we  go home at night and after hours of talking to people like brick walls, it drives us a little insane, and yet, we do it with a smile on our faces day in and day out.

I also have noticed a superiority complex that exists among some individuals who seem to get their jollies from pushing around us surfs who are obligated to treat them nicely as they “are always right”. Not cool people, not cool.

To wrap up my whining, I don’t know about anyone else’s mothers, but I was always taught to say “hello”, “please” and “thank you” no matter what the situation or how much better you may think you are.

Jeesh.

Enough complaining for now.

Lindsay

New blog, how to start…Oh yes..’Balloon Boy’!!

Kind of wish the kid would have ACTUALLY been flying around at 10,000 feet.

Watch all the action at CNN.com

Funny, his name is Falcon!!