Week 17: Communication

Communication is more than words. 

It is pictures and visions and inflections and 

emotions and

colors and brightness and 

sullenness and interpretation. 

The way an idea is communicated can make you move or make you stop. 

It can make you cry for joy or sorrow.

It stirs the soul.

 

  The best thing is that words are not needed.

Grace in Boots

We slip into believing that it's better to strive for perfection 

than to accept and offer one another grace. 

Bittersweet by Shauna Neiquist

I did it today...I made a huge fashion-fopah...

 I wore Ugg boots (okay okay Sears knock-offs)...

...with my pants tucked into them.. 

...in the middle of APRIL!!

Okay, so for all of you Midwest and (more) Northerners, this is not a rare thing. But in warmer climates like DC, well lets just say I also have a sunburn from reading outside Saturday...

But please, let me explain!

So after the 80s this weekend, DC's weather must of hit that time of month because it suddenly went from warm and blissful to frigid and cold. It was 80s on Saturday morning and 40s Monday at noon...

Also, you should know I walk a good pace before getting on to the Metro to get to work, .7 of a mile to be precise.

Lastly, I hate when my pants drag on the ground. I have even been known to tuck them into my shoes during dire straights!

So what was I to do with my cold feet, long pants, and long walk ahead of me??

Solution: Ugg boots! - I could keep my feet warm and comfy and pant pants dry and clean while not killing my back as I walked. PERFECT

Except...I am like every other all-American girl who doesn't really follow 

fashion but would like to think she has style...

So here I am, embarrassed at the way I look as I pass girls with bare legs, flats, or no coast on and me with my pants tucked into my boots.

AND THEN,

I realized something....

I AM NOT THAT COOL

That's right - I, Jennifer M Van Ee - admit that I am not the most important thing or more interesting person to look at on the planet. In fact, if I were not a giant, you may not even notice me on the street if you passed me.

Wow - talk about blow to the ego!

 

 But then again, not really. It was kind of releasing. As in "Hey Jen, the world won't fall apart if you're not there." Or "Wait a second, you spelled you name wrong again?!?!?! You are fired - JUST KIDDING!" Or "5 seconds late to church? Not here, you're right on time!"

 But it's true! All that awkwardness I felt was completely my mind. As I walked off the Metro and towards the elevators, hardly a person even glanced at me, much less my feet. 

So next time you see a girl where Uggs in the middle of April, smile at her as you pass.

But whatever you do, DO NOT LOOK AT HER FEET!

Week ?? : Getting Back on Track

After my Lent experiment of writing every day, I've taken a little bit of a break. The last two weeks have been a little feast and famine in my life - chaos and solitude - that allowed me to space to remember and reflect on the business of the last several moments, months, and moves. 

However, it also happened to remember me of my new year's commitment to 

STEADFASTNESS.

I remember committing to steadfastness in mind, body, spirit, and relationships. To making priorities and living in them. To talk in action and not words. And to write in this space at least once a week. 

I also remembered how far I have NOT come on my resolution for steadfastness. This year has only been four months and already I have gone through cycles of crazy business and restless numbing boredom. I've raced through life without intention and yet failed to race at all. I have not started exercising regularly and my eating habits go more with my mood than my stated plans.

Yet in this I find grace. A grace that before moving to DC almost 9 months ago, I had never truly experienced. The type of grace you can extend to yourself and let yourself rest in. The type of grace that allows you to hold on to the lessons of the past but not the memories or emotions. That type of grace that allows you to readjust or change course after realizing you've been heading in the wrong direction. The type of grace that rocks me to sleep each night and is new every morning.

So even if I have failed to be intentional in steadfastness these last four months, I can say that I'm definitely learning to be  STEADFAST IN GRACE.

When "It's Okay to Quit"

She did not consider her future. Therefore she has fallen astonishingly.” Lamentations 1:9

  Sometimes, life and time take over and you forget to stop and make that time your own.

  2011 was a year that I let happen to me, and I spent the majority of it depressed and unmotivated. It must sound crazy from the outside to hear that 2011 was a hard year for me spiritually and emotionally because so many amazing things happened. I sold tons of eBooks and earned a full-time income, I got two publishing deals, got asked to speak at various events, and was even about to start a new conference. Life from the outside was a dream come true.

  On the inside of this life, I was sad, and lost, and didn’t know what I was doing. I felt overwhelmed, tired, depressed, and alone. I was busy, and I didn’t take the time to eat the Word that my soul so desperately needed. I was going and going and trying to make it on my own, without trying. I didn’t pursue any of the things that happened to me, and while I am excited about them, and thankful for them, I didn’t really choose. I let things happen. It’s a strange thing when you are thrilled about something you get to do because you love it, while also feeling torn and stretched and confused about whether or not you should be doing it. And then it happens, and it’s good, and you see God all over it and you praise Him. But you are awakened to the fact that you must fight for the small, even in the blessing.


Read the rest of Sarah's encouraging blog here: Stretching into the Blue: It's Okay to Quit

Reflections on Lent: Waiting for Saturday

There is so much "hype" for Good Friday and so much for Easter morning -- and for good reason. This is the season that means to the most who confess Jesus as their Lord and Savior for it is on Easter that Christ is risen from the dead so that we may not just be saved BUT HAVE LIFE through him.

However, what do you do on this Saturday then...wait for Sunday morning? 

What does this say about how we spend the other  "in-between" days - in between jobs, 

in between relationships, in between spiritual highs...???

Most of our lives are spent in Holy Saturday. In other words, most of our days are not filled with the unbearable pain of a Good Friday. Nor are they suffused with the unbelievable joy of an Easter. Some days are indeed times of great pain and some are of great joy, but most are…in between. Most are, in fact, times of waiting, as the disciples waited during Holy Saturday. We’re waiting. Waiting to get into a good school. Waiting to meet the right person. Waiting to get pregnant. Waiting to get a job. Waiting for things at work to improve Waiting for diagnosis from the doctor. Waiting for life just to get better.

To read the rest go to, http://www.americamagazine.org/blog/entry.cfm?blog_id=2&entry_id=5043

This season of Lent has been a large part reflection and small parts doing. It's been examining our lives and habits to check them against our said priorities and God's. It's a check of how we spend of money, our time, and our emotions. But it's also been that - a check. It does no good to reflect these last 40 days if we don't take the next steps now - the steps from "to Judea to Samaria and to the ends of the earth."

Happy Lent  (and an even more HAPPY EASTER just a little early!)

Reflections on Lent: Examples of Sharing

We started this week with the idea of sharing our sacrifice, the story of our passion with others. But to do that, it's a journey of discovering that passion. Maybe that's what this journey of Lent was for you - discovering who you are in Christ and the different ways he uniquely designed you. Maybe it was drilling down into some of the fundamental ways you best connect with God and with others. Maybe it's finding the precise way you tick or way you're wound to for "such a time as this."

Whatever it is, don't let it die on Good Friday but give it over to God as Christ did through the cross - surrender your passions, your skills, and your time and watch what God will bring to life on Easter morning.

As my sufferings mounted I soon realized that there were two ways in which I could respond to my situation -- either to react with bitterness or seek to transform the suffering into a creative force. I decided to follow the latter course.”

http://mlk-kpp01.stanford.edu/index.php/encyclopedia/documentsentry/suffering_and_faith

I believe that Scripture includes such graphic material to show how far we, as a race, have fallen and how far God was willing to come to rescue us from ourselves. - Steven James


http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2012/02/25/my-take-stop-sugarcoating-the-bible/?hpt=hp_c4

Reflections on Lent: Stories of Moving

Stories: Moving from Ignorance to Knowledge to Action

The following is an excerpt from a blog linked to at the bottom of the page. It it the author describes how she came to find out about the sex trade and how that knowledge has changed her life

Where the song ended, determined which woman was selected for the night. The scholar then began to sing it in his heavy accent:

“Eenie Meenie Mini Moe …”

Hearing these words, even in a crowd of 4,000 people, hit me like a machete in my stomach.

How have I missed this? How have I perpetuated this?

While Elmina castle is infamous for the buying and selling of slave souls, somehow I’ve missed this other story happening on the sidelines of the slave horror: The story of prostituted women lined up to serve the slave traders’ sexual whims.

Now I hear these words, thick as rope, woven around the women, tying them to a destiny of diminishment.

But what if I didn’t know before?
I’ve been wondering whether we can we perpetuate the evil, even in our unknowing? Does not knowing and saying the words, carry on the diminishing?

I don’t know, but it makes me sick that I didn’t know. That this story could be so veiled to my seeing and my hearing.
It makes me sick that too many of us still don’t know.

This one thing I do know: Now that I know how these words were formed in the mouths of abusers, these words will not be spoken in my home or in my presence. I will do my utmost to educate and stop the lineage of injustice through these words wherever I can.

http://shelovesmagazine.com/2012/no-eenie-meenie-in-my-mouth/