Working

I just have to say that I really hate that most any job I am qualified to get (honestly, that's mostly office work since that's the experience I have - and you can't get a job without experience, just like you can't get experience without a job) REQUIRE you to multi-task when ALL of the current brain and happiness studies are showing that it isn't healthy to do so.  It's not even really possible, they say, to do a good job on any of the tasks one is trying to do simultaneously, and the quality of work is inversely proportional to the amount of different things you're trying to do at once.

Why are all of the jobs out there soul-killing, "just get by" work?  It's not wonder we've coped by saying that "Who you are is not what you do."  That statement doesn't make any sense at all.  Who you are may not be what you are doing, but it is, or at least has a lot to do with what you do.  For example, we say "God is love."  But we can only say that in truth if God ACTS in a loving way.  God is love because God LOVES.  Who God is, in large part, is what God does. Divorcing the two makes the "who am I?" question profoundly more difficult to answer, and it's probably why we've got lead stories in magazines like "a Step-by-Step Guide to finding and fulfilling your life's purpose."  Really?  I'm sorry, but I'm going to call bullshit.  If it were that easy, people would have, among many, many othe reasons, figured it out a LONG time ago.

It's really too bad we've accepted the idea that "working" shouldn't always be fulfilling - it's just something you do "during the day" or "to make a living."  Why isn't the goal to make a LIFE?  And, why are REALLY ok with spending more time at a place we hate or doesn't fit with who we know we are than anywhere else in life?  That's sick, and it is REALLY discouraging since, at this point in our lovely capitalist society (where you have to even pay for WATER), most people need jobs.

(Sorry, this comes with my incredible frustration at having to "sell myself" when really, THEY are the ones that want to hire, THEY should be telling ME why I should chose to work for THEM and STILL constantly being turned down or away for jobs I don't even like but am OVER-qualified for in really rude, sometimes completely unacceptable ways.  I don't want to work for ANYONE anymore if this is how they treat people, even their "lowly" applicants).

A face changes everything

Have you ever looked forward to meeting someone only to finally do so and vibe that it didn't, for whatever, go so well?  Yu either feel like they didn't like you, or that you weren't what they were expecting or something?  Then, you kind of go around for a few days wondering what you did wrong....

did I talk too much?  Did I not talk about the right things?  Was there something green stuck in my teeth that had the other person so distracted they couldn't even HEAR what I was saying?

And then, you realize that this sea of insecurity is cultural.  It's social.  We are raised, in some form or another, to believe that we are inadequate, not good enough, and need to change to be loved.  Case in point:  Most of the "Disney Princesses" teach us the lesson that if you want to reach your goal (in most cases, it is a "prince"), you have to change who you are: the only way you get what you want is, through pain, to give up essentail aspects of who you are.  Ariel has to become human, giving up her mermaidness and her voice, to get the prince.  Bell has to give up her family and her sense of self.  Women in our culture are socialized from a very young age to EXPECT to have to give up essential aspects of who they are - not only for "princes", but for friends.

What got me thinking along these lines originally was a recent first-time meeting that, fromy side whent well, but from my perception, the feelings weren't shared...Meeting face to face sometimes doesn't work out, but a lot of people use that as an excuse to discontinue pursuing friendship.  I becaome really, really close friends with someone over the phone, but after we met in person, we began "fighting."  I would say it was because of life choices that we'd each made that the other didn't agree with, this friend would say "We met face to face and got more information."  I don't get it.  Does a face really change things that much?  Do people really have to change in order to fit in, be socially acceptable?  How, then, does a person truly experience love if they must squeeze themselves into the culture or social norms they find around them?  Or behave a certain way to be accepted?

The Write stuff

So, remember that story I wrote about my grandfather's death?  (I posted it here a few months ago).

It won the contest I entered it in.

Oh, and they are going to publish a poem I wrote in an online journal, too.  This is the poem that made my pastor cry (and is sitting framed on his desk).

:-D.

Deep thoughts @ 100 mph

I know people who long to love me.  My pastors have worked damn hard to.  My parents, I have to admit, did, too.  My grandparents I know did.  My grandmother - the last grandparent I have on this earth - still does.  So much.  My ex-boyfriend loves me still.  I know he longs to, too.  The people I've stayed with out here in Europe, in their own ways.  And this is healing to realize.  Hard to accept love when you reject yourself (for, WHY in the world would I accept such a person as I, right?).

But, who longs to know MY love?  That, I think, is even more healing than being loved.  Loving.  Not just feeling the desire to love another, but for that other to desire YOUR love.  So far, the only person that I can think that has expressed an explicit desire for this from me is God Himself.  And that, at least right now, is too hard to get my head around.

See, we don't want to admit that we want to be loved PARTICULARLY.  We want love, yes, but we - at least I - want it from particular people...not necessarily in particular ways.  I'm not taking about flattery.  I'm taking about being in tune with, recognizing, and celebrating by desireing the lavish, abundant, weighty, one-of-a-kind giftings He placed in each person uniquely.  Do I too partake of this definition of humannes?  The obvious answer is "Of course, Megan!"  The emotional answer is..."I plead the fifth."  The mental answer is "Yeah but...."  The spiritual answer is, probably, "What else do you think a person IS?"  (Do you think we are first bodies and then souls or do you think that there is something truer to our nature?  It would seem so since old age doesn't change who a person is: even someone with Alzheimer's.  The reason dementia is a "disease" (not-at-ease) is because the people that love that person know that the state they are rapidly deteriorating into is NOT WHO THEY 'REALLY' are).

So, wanting to be loved by particular people is not manipulation, neediness or immaturity, then.  It is actually a recognition of God's love for us through that person - since all the dreams God has for us NEVER just involved us, but are ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS for others, about others and ultimately about us all as an "us" (and an "I" no more).

(As a side note, would God waste such extravagence that goes into a person by allowing death to be the end?")

"Irreconcilable conflict"

Sometimes, the only thing that is impossible is your willingness to believe what is possible

Quote Collector

"I think the best thing we can do with genetic engineering is to change what owls say...from "who, who, who?" to "why? why? why?" - Mark

"Eating a potato is not going to give you a potato famine." - Friend from church

"The best practice for writing is writing." - Bill "Papa" Nagy, prof. and church elder

"I'm annoyed by your free will." - me (to Mark)

"I don't want you to grow any faster than your ability to know that you are loved." -Mark

"It's all fun and games till you realize you can't breathe." - Mark

"If you know who you are, you can go anywhere." - Flannery O'Connor

"Only when love abides at home can it happen in the world." - Mother Teresa

"There are usally two reasons why something is hard: either you're doing it wrong or you're trying to do something hard." - Papa Nagy

"If anything matters, then everything matters." - William P. Young

"You know, we don't talk enough about how much I love your poetry." - Mary Anne "Mama" Nagy, church elder, friend (to me)

"Stress is definitely over-rated." - Heidi Baker, Missionary to Mozambique

"A large majority of the general population severely lacks critical thinking skills.  That's why commercials work." - Maya Sprague, Christian counselor and teacher

"Every time my computer crashes and I lose everything - and this happens on a fairly regular basis - there is a little part of me that is slightly relieved." - Friend of a friend's

"What is your class - Math For the Environment - about?  Is it like, 'This is one tree and this is two trees?'" (Dad)  "And if we wait long enough there will be three trees!" (Mom) "And if we wait even longer there will be NO trees!" (brother).

"To live fully, be ready to die." - Karl Neils, my pastor

"You are all modern individuals.  There are problems with both of those categories." - Dr. Spina, prof. at SPU