passionately pensive

Depixelation

noreply@blogger.com (Alaina) — Tue, 15 May 2012 13:00:00 +0000

I type in "www.facebook.com" into my internet browser. It's been a month since I've visited. I deactivated my account on a whim after I realized that there was no way I was going to make it through the end of the semester with the world's most insipid time suck readily at my fingertips.

Now I am typing it into my url bar and my browser can't seem complete the task. This is irritating to me because I want to log in as quickly as possible, find the account deletion page as quickly as possible and get back to cleaning my bathroom as quickly as possible.

I thought I would feel compelled to reactivate my account after the semester ended and time felt less constrained, but the opposite has in fact occurred. I feel less compelled to keep up with my pixelated relationships and more compelled to spend time with my friends in private email, phone, and face-to-face conversations. I picked up a rigorous praying schedule. I even mailed a hand-written letter for the first time in months.

I'm still waiting for facebook to finish loading. My impatience is mounting.

Deleting my facebook account feels right. I'm creeped out by the ways they use my information to market to me. Mark Zuckerburg doesn't seem like a reliable CEO. I don't think that CEOs of billion dollar companies are generally the sorts of people that I would hang out with on a daily basis, but I'm doubly deterred by him. I know I am not to judge a book by its cover or make assumptions about people I don't know... but... I just can't get over the fact that he doesn't seem trustworthy. Unless of course my goal was to make money.
Still loading. REALLY?

Since I deactivated my account, I've received more personal contact from friends in other places. I've felt less social pressure to be fantastically witty and beautiful in every moment. I've missed details on a few social events and didn't care. I've felt free. I had a good friend who also, independently, decided to delete her account. External confirmation is rewarding.

Still loading. Moved to the ipad. Yeesh. It's like they know I am killing it. Okay, the ipad loaded quickly.

This summer, I am going to work with gang-affected youth in Houston. I've never done this sort of work, but I'm thrilled someone has decided it is an important piece of my vocational formation. I can't wait to meet the guys and play video games (at this task, I know I will fail, but humility is critical) and maybe go to the zoo. I can't wait to share pieces of my life with them and hope that they will feel welcome and safe to do the same. Perhaps I will be compelled to re-enter the pixelated domain in order to keep in touch with them. I'll make that decision when the situation presents itself.

I find the account deletion page within the labyrinth of Facebook's help pages. I feel a little nervous about all of this. But I'm not even tempted to scroll through my news feed.

Deletion is what I want. I'm not really going anywhere, after all. I'm not deleting myself. My body still occupies the 5' 2.5", 130 lbs. space that it did yesterday and last week and four months ago. Life isn't perfect or even any better without facebook, but it is more bodily, more mindful, and and maybe a little more heartfelt. That makes my life seem more like me.

__
Read my fellow Creative Collective bloggers' work on the topic of "Space" here.

So you want to be a good person...

noreply@blogger.com (Alaina) — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 15:50:00 +0000

Yeesh. Who feels like a total jerk for not posting videos and comments and hashtags about international criminals?

Yesterday, many in my diverse social media networks urged me to watch a video and post the video and support the cause. None of these activities are explicitly bad. In fact, they are arguably good things that promote awareness about a terrible situation. However, when I watched the video this morning, I couldn't help but notice how little of the story was about a strong and surviving Ugandan boy and how much of the story was about a young American boy. I noticed how much of the story was about what Americans were doing and how little the story was about what Ugandans and other African people groups were doing. I couldn't help but notice that the solution proposed to ending these atrocious crime was militarized support: more guns, more military, more deaths. I had to look away so often that I regret watching it. I don't need more images of guns, violence, and death in my mind's eye.

There are a lot of critical view on the video, on the organization behind the video, and those who are sharing the video. They range from essays that explore the depth of problems with this campaign to humorous and incisive critiques on how we conceive of activism in the social media world.

I don't want to rain on anyone's desire to do well by their brothers and sisters. That impulse is good, well-intentioned and important. At the same time, I think that it is important for us to think about how deeply complicated these ongoing militarized crises are and how throwing our social media feeds into a frenzy may not actually be accomplishing the faithful work of loving our neighbor.

I am asking myself this morning if I am ready to ask my government to kill in my name to stop killing.
I am asking myself this morning if I am interested in this issue because it is at hand and because everyone else is talking about it.
I am asking myself this morning if I am actually willing to support Ugandan and Congolese efforts, or if I am more interested in fixing it my way.
I am asking myself what real work should be done to reach true peace.
I am asking myself how I can ask my friends, my brothers and sisters, my neighbors to be aware, to be mindful, and to be active in promoting true peace, not more weapons, not more death.

__

This post was written alongside my fellow synchrobloggers at the Creative Collective on the topic of "A Record Scratch Moment." Read their posts here.

Time Draft

noreply@blogger.com (Alaina) — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 02:42:00 +0000

The late afternoon snuck in
under the crack
between the door and the frame.
It's a small crack,
somehow big enough that time can't be kept out.

Showers, toothbrushes, real life clothes, food
can't fit in the crack,
somehow time can.

I wonder how many others have
the same kind of cracks
between their door and door frames.
How many headaches and heartaches
have pushed them to stuff
towels
and
sheets
around the cracks,
hoping to keep the draft of time
and light
and wind away,
even if for just a moment more?

Tomorrow, I'll get up
before dawn,
just like I did yesterday.
I'll open the door,
the crack will disappear
into the new and gaping opening.
I'll run and I'll shower.
I'll eat and I'll put on real clothes.
I'll sit with real people and speak aloud.

Time
and light
and wind will help the day make sense,
sitting and swirling and rushing unnoticed.

__

This post was written alongside my fellow creatives at The Creative Collective on the topic, "Speed." Read their fantastic posts here.

Interrupting Chaos

noreply@blogger.com (Alaina) — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 12:49:00 +0000

As the people of God, we are faced with a daily choice as to how we would like make God's claim on our life apparent. Oftentimes, I fail. I am impatient and bitter, steady in my self-reliance to get things done. I can do it, just let me alone. My fiercely independent industriousness doesn't have much space for a God that enters into my chaos and the chaos of the world. I'm too busy cleaning it up to notice or even care.

Lent is a time a time of permission to visit the depths of these weaknesses within us: all of our personal failings, all of our corporate failings. Lenten practices remind me to empty myself of myself so that I might notice the work that God has done in this world and is doing in this world. My habits, my posture of self-reliance, my attitude of solitary initiative are called into question when I admit the limitations of my body, that I cannot clean up my chaos and I cannot clean up others' either.

Lenten practices asks the people of God to embody their weaknesses, their failure, their hunger. In fasting, there is a hunger not only for food and its comfort, but there is a hunger for God and a desire that others might not be hungry. Lenten practices force us to revisit the Incarnation because they ask us to meditate on Jesus' body, the suffering that Jesus endured, and the love that he offered so freely. Our bodies and spirits, like Jesus', are meant for the good of creation and all that is in it.

Lenten practices are not behavior modification, they are incarnate reminders that our chaos has been interrupted. They are opportunities for the church to interrupt the chaos of the world, our communities, our lives. It begs the question, how are you interrupting chaos?

__

This post was written as a part of the Creative Collective on the topic "Hunger." Read my fellow creatives' work here.

Can I pray?

noreply@blogger.com (Alaina) — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 16:14:00 +0000

Tomorrow, the Lenten season of the church begins. All of our Alleluias will be buried deeply in their liturgical tomb, wrapped tightly in burial clothes. But I feel like I am burying a shriveled corpse. I haven't had much Alleluia in my life lately. It's been more like Ahhhhhhh! Let me sleep, will ya? This is not the life that I want to live. Not the person that I want to be. Not the sister, daughter, roommate, friend, colleague, student that I want to be. The cultural lack of sackcloth and ashes force and allow me to hide my lament and anger at the state of things.

I'm not sleeping because there are important and terrible things asking for me to pay attention to them. Terrible conditions of my brothers and sisters in far away places, geographically, emotionally, economically. Terrible treatment of my brothers and sisters who, in attempting to be faithful, are derided and excluded for their lives, their views, their hearts by those who claim to love them. I lay awake wondering if there is something else I can do to help myself see another more clearly, if there is something I can do to help them see me more clearly, if there is anything else I can plead to God to do to help us bring healing and restoration in this gaping wound of the world.

I lay awake wondering, but I often do not pray. I do not pray because I'm afraid to go there. I'm afraid that if I talk to God, God will answer me and it will not be beautiful, but it will be cross and nails and stony paths. I do not want to walk down that path. I do not want to cry anymore. I do not want to break. I do not want to lose it.

I do not want, but my want has failed me.

__

This post has been crafted alongside my fellow synchrobloggers from the Creative Collective on the topic of "What Moves Me." Check out their writing here.

closeted

noreply@blogger.com (Alaina) — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 16:19:00 +0000

There are days when I crawl into a dark closet, close the door, and doubt the realities of my experience.

When I am there I ask myself if this recently-endowed nickname, Funlaina, is an ironic jab at my pain-in-the-assness. I don't find myself to be a very fun person very often. I am mostly mourning and lamenting underneath my pink fleshy walls, I think that surely everyone can see that.

When I am in that dark place, I wonder if everyone sees me as jerk: willing to confront every issue, arrogant in my abilities to do something about it, and fully incapable of actually seeing the real people who live in this thing I've made an issue. Or I wonder if everyone has found me out: that I am a immature, goofy youth minister posing as a serious graduate student, that I will laugh at fart jokes and I will pretend to know something about Karl Barth if you ask me.

I wonder if my activist-friends have figured out that the only thing I know how to do is print nametags and order food and that I don't know anything about community organizing except that I read a biography about Ella Baker and think she was amazing. I wonder if my roommates will know how deeply insecure I am that I have imposed my student-hood on them, eating the food they make for dinner without cleaning up and asking for rides to school on a weekly basis. I wonder if my friends in other places are sick of never hearing from me and have decided that I don't love them anymore. I wonder if my friends in town feel like I've abandoned them when they need me for an inconsequential paper. I wonder if my family thinks that I am the black sheep that has wandered away from them in pursuit of a ridiculous dream.

I don't go to this place often. It isn't pleasant, but it exists. I can't assume that it is the sort of place that exists underneath everyone's fleshy walls, but I have a sense that it is within some of us. We don't talk about it because it makes us seem weak and fragile and exposes us to the wolves. Nevertheless, when I go there, I have to talk myself out of it: slowly, gingerly, carefully, with tea, long runs, repetitive readings of Psalm 147, and tears. There are always tears.

When I talk to my friends and my colleagues and my family about this place, the initial reaction is something like, "Hush now, little baby, don't say a word." Then on occasion, there is admission of mutuality, that this place is a shared space, a community center where everyone is hoveled into tiny closests, hiding behind the old smelly and abandoned coats.

When someone tells me that they've been there, that they know exactly the smell and the coats and the thoughts that I am talking about, when they nod and breathe deeply and give me a hug, the door of the closet cracks open. Ever so slightly.

__

This post was crafted alongside my synchroblogging friends on the topic of "Community." Their words pushed me to share my own. May they do likewise for you.

more than our brains

noreply@blogger.com (Alaina) — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 16:38:00 +0000

In a flurry of last minute Greek Exam studying procrastination, my eyes landed on this little post on the Fuller Youth Institute Blog. I want to give Kara Powell, the executive director of FYI, the full benefit of the doubt, but I'm still struck that this article reduces teenagers to their IQ scores and parenting is reducted to the task of raising scores. She says,

As a parent and youth leader, I’m so encouraged by what this study suggests. Previous brain research has made it seem that most all of brain development ends at about age 6. If you weren’t reading and/or stretching your kids’ thinking between birth and Kindergarten, it was too late.

If there was a club for “Parents Who Read As Much As They Could Do Their Young Kids But Wish They Could Have Done More,” my husband and I would easily become members. So this theme in recent neurological research means we all still have time.

Time. While this study doesn’t cite the causes of IQ development, I’m guessing that children and teenagers often become more critical thinkers when adults take the time to talk with them, listen to them, ask them questions. And then repeat the cycle: talk with them, listen to them, ask them questions.

What can you do in the next few days to try to go deeper in conversation with a child or teenager?

I cannot believe that she would agree with the implication that we engage young people in conversation with the sole purpose of raising IQ scores, yet the implication is there. Unhindered and seemingly unseen. We put so much pressure on children to perform and on parents to raise performing children, true selves are lost underneath all of the assessments, scores, and participation ribbons.

Even while the church is attentive to research and to educational theory and to sociological trends, we must never lose sight of the deepest truth that defines our ministry to all people, young and old. This truth is that we have each been created in the image of God and however we may have mucked that image up, it is restored through the person of Christ. This communal identity shapes, forms, and informs all that we do. Scores, assessments, and studies have little bearing on us because in Christ we are made complete. Garnering a higher IQ score won't make a teenager a better student, a better human, or a better image bearer.

Brains and bodies matter because they bear God's image and form Christ's body, but the minute we begin to prioritize brains over bodies or bodies over brains, we lose sight of the fullness of our humanity. In ministry to young people, we must resist the temptation to reduce them to their accomplishments, their promise, their future vocation, their athletic prowess, or their failures. Each person in our churches, in our families, in our classrooms is an image-bearer worthy of our time, patience, consideration, and love. Regardless of whether or not our efforts will produce measurable fruit.

As I return to my last minute exam cram session, I go freely knowing that the few points I might earn from these moments of review will not define my person in God's eyes, in my church's eyes, in my family's eyes, or in my friends' eyes. I will do my best to the glory of God and will set aside my ambition and anxieties to be the best. For those ambitions and anxieties dishonor the image of God created and restored in me. May we all continue struggling towards this freedom.

these lovely moments

noreply@blogger.com (Alaina) — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 14:35:00 +0000

These lovey moments:

they slip so quickly

like water pouring over the falls,

pooling at bottom,

in the depths of who we are.

Majesty

noreply@blogger.com (Alaina) — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 13:00:00 +0000

I have been very busy studying, writing, working for Duke Youth Ministry Initiatives, and planning After the Yellow Ribbon, a student-led Veteran's day event aiming to cultivate a conversation between the church and the military on the moral, emotional, mental health care service members and veterans. You can learn all about that effort here.

In the midst of my chaos, majesty abounds. These are a few reminders.

This post was written with the Creative Collective. Enjoy the writing and art of others on the theme, "Water," by clicking here.

climbing

noreply@blogger.com (Alaina) — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 13:00:00 +0000

I put on the gloves,
grabbed onto the wire,
and put my head down.
I pulled myself up the mountainside,
ignoring the deep desire to vomit
to cry in exhaustion,
to give up.

Falling seemed so easy, so simple, so free
even if just to the ground below
to sit quietly without effort or struggle.

I suppose it all seems easy
falling in and out of love,
floating in and out of consciousness,
moments whirring past
without aim or strain.

But these gloves have knit themselves into my hands.
And they grip onto the wire,
curved in habit and pain.
There is no falling option,
only climbing
climbing,
climbing.

This mountain promises
something more to come.
I climb in despair
in disbelief
in hope.

--

This post is written as a contribution to The Creative Collective on the topic of "Falling." Check out my fellow synchrobloggers' work here.

Wash it all away

noreply@blogger.com (Alaina) — Tue, 06 Sep 2011 13:00:00 +0000

Wash it all away.
Leave it all behind.
It will never be same.

--

This post is created as a part of The Creative Collective on the topic of "Giving up for the long haul." Check out the posts here.

More Dress Up!

noreply@blogger.com (Alaina) — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 00:54:00 +0000

Genevieve and I partnered up to take some more photos. Joy was a great model.

Playing Dress-up

noreply@blogger.com (Alaina) — Tue, 23 Aug 2011 13:00:00 +0000

We had a little fun this weekend with our friend, Genevieve, from Traveling Scissors.

Katie and Megan provide the hair, faces, and smiles.

Genevieve, the expert styling.

I took the photos.

Fun Thing Thirty: Life is Beautiful

noreply@blogger.com (Alaina) — Wed, 17 Aug 2011 13:00:00 +0000

Fun Thing Twenty-Nine: Meals al Fresco

noreply@blogger.com (Alaina) — Tue, 16 Aug 2011 13:00:00 +0000

Cooler weather has made for many delightful moments on the porch.

There aren't very many better ways that I can imagine spending my weekend evenings and days.

Fun Thing Twenty-Eight: Pool Party

noreply@blogger.com (Alaina) — Mon, 15 Aug 2011 13:00:00 +0000

Sitting beside the pool, eating good food, watching the sun fall...

...Signs that life is good, maybe too good.

Fun Thing Twenty-Seven: Island Wandering

noreply@blogger.com (Alaina) — Sat, 13 Aug 2011 13:00:00 +0000

Sometimes baking on the beach is overrated. Wandering through beach towns and exploring their quirks can be just as relaxing.

All lazy island explorations should be concluded with a drum fish and scallop linner. (You know what linner is, don't you? Lunch and dinner? Like brunch but in the late afternoon? It's one of my favorite meals.)

Photos 1 and 4 were captured by my sis, featured in photo 2.

Fun Thing Twenty-Six: Sun, Sand and Sisters

noreply@blogger.com (Alaina) — Fri, 12 Aug 2011 13:00:00 +0000

Fun Thing Twenty-Five: Seafood

noreply@blogger.com (Alaina) — Thu, 11 Aug 2011 13:00:00 +0000

Yum-o.

Fun Thing Twenty-Four: Bull City Bests

noreply@blogger.com (Alaina) — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 13:00:00 +0000

Showing off the Bull City to some of my favorite people is fun.

Good food and good baseball win this crowd over easily.

Again and Again

noreply@blogger.com (Alaina) — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 13:00:00 +0000

Again! Again!
I'm sure I yelled these words one thousand and twenty times when I was younger, smaller, ready for the thrill of the spin for the world.
But this time it wasn't me.
This time it was Jacob, age four, former peg-legged pirate and a part-time cowboy.
This time it was Jacob yelling, begging, pleading for the thrill of another spin.

Spin me again, Awayna!
He threw his arms around my waist, tightly tugging my body, my mind, my heart strings into his tiny orbit.

Okay, Jacob. This is the last time.
The truth dripped out of my smiling mouth. I was lying. We both knew it.
We spun.
We spun again.
And then some more.
These are the happiest sort of lies a person can tell.

--

This post is part of The Creative Collective, a synchroblog among friends. Check out others' writing and art on today's topic "The Earth around the Sun, or the Sun around the Earth: Centers of Gravity."

Fun Thing Twenty-Three: My Family

noreply@blogger.com (Alaina) — Fri, 05 Aug 2011 13:00:00 +0000

These guys just flew in for the weekend (minus the beloved pooch). I got so excited that I forgot to take a picture so I pulled up an oldie goldie in which they are sporting the StL pride. I think they'll be sporting some Durhammie pride by the end of this trip.

Fun Thing Twenty-Two: (Not My) Family

noreply@blogger.com (Alaina) — Thu, 04 Aug 2011 12:35:00 +0000

When I decided to move to Durham, I didn't know anyone in the town, maybe one person in the entire state. It was thrilling and scary all at once. I had no idea what to expect of the new life I would create.

Through dumb luck or (more likely) the great providence of God, I am living in a house that feeds my soul as much as it provides me shelter. My roommates make me laugh and help me to balance the stress of school and work and staying in touch with a whole ecology of friendships in Missouri. I am forever amazed at their willingness to share with me, especially their family. Last night, as their family gathered in our house to celebrate the return of a traveling brother, delicious Italian food, spontaneous singalongs, and tickle-fests with tiny people filled the house. It's not my family, but their willingness to share makes this home mine.

Fun Thing Twenty-One: Creative Escapism

noreply@blogger.com (Alaina) — Wed, 03 Aug 2011 13:00:00 +0000

When I was in high school, I participated in a summer program's writing group for three weeks. We wandered around a college campus and sometimes into the surrounding town and practiced our craft. We wrote villanelles and one-act scripts and read each other our favorite pieces of writing. I think I read something from Albert Camus' The Stranger. I was so weird.

One day, we visited to a used bookstore. Determined to carry home a properly used book, I bought Ernest Hemingway's A Moveable Feast. Previous to this moment, I'd only read Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea. Since I'd exhausted all of F. Scott Fitzgerald's bibliography and I hadn't hated The Old Man and the Sea, A Moveable Feast seemed like the right kind of book for me. Again, I was weird. Still am, actually.

I vaguely remember reading the book, but just as the stories it houses have left my memory, it has since disappeared from my shelves. Perhaps I lent it to someone or it vanished in one of the many post-college relocation projects. It might be hiding in a rubber box, tucked between certificates of participation (why did I think volleyball was a good idea?) and albums of adolescent smiles. For how little I remember of its actual content, the physical book carries a significant weight in my authorial (and personal) identity. The book reminds me of a time when others pushed me to a creative edge and challenged me out of my tiny secluded world.

The film, Midnight in Paris, with its romantic kitsch and neurotic dialogue, attempts to capture the moment Hemingway's moveable feast. The film indulges the particular American escapist dream of expatriate Parisian life and asks how far one should go to escape reality and discover creative inspiration. It wasn't my favorite Woody Allen film, but it's a cheerful reminder to push myself into a new creative territory. That is the kind of fun I can get behind.

PS: I recommend brushing up on your 1920s authors and painters before going to see this film. The name dropping in this movie was tremendous.

Fun Thing Twenty: Crunchy!

noreply@blogger.com (Alaina) — Tue, 02 Aug 2011 13:00:00 +0000

I decided to embrace my inherent crunchiness and I made my own granola. I tried to make granola once before, using a banana instead of oil and adding the cranberries way too soon. It was icky.

This time I decided to follow a recipe and things turned out a-okay. Fancy that.

Local honey makes all the difference.

Don't judge me because I chose my recipe by googling "best homemade granola." I didn't follow it to the "t," but it was good nonetheless. Thanks Kiss My Spatula.