Fear and Rationality

Wow it has been about 4 months since my last post! So sad. But it goes to show my schedule and abilities to endeavor into my creative outlets (aka that endeavor does not exist). I have not, however, stopped thinking.


This brain is like a train line, always moving, sometimes on schedule, sometimes a bit off. If thinking could be classified as a spiritual gift, I would say that I possess it. Along with the ability to think and analyze comes an understanding of most possible outcomes in situations. When I consider everything that could possibly happen in all situations of my life I run myself pretty ragged, engendering fear and anxiety that paralyzes. Luckily, after 23 years of life, I have learned to cope somewhat, especially in the last few years thanks to the help of counselors (official and unofficial) and some very loving friends. As I have breached the surface of my unbridled sea of anxiousness, I have noticed that I am not the only one who suffers with this crippling fear. There are many of us! It's so weird how alone I felt in my anxiety, especially alienated by the ones closest to me who suffered from their own anxieties. It's quite maddening.

Nevertheless, I have emerged from beneath the abyss, and now I am prepared to gaze at the reflection permanently situated on the surface. Fear and anxiety are not the way we are meant to live. They trap creativity and the ability to take risks in any situation. I was raised to be not only cautious always, but never to take risks. Always seek comfort and success because you wouldn't want to embarass yourself by looking like you don't have it all together. I don't know that my family meant me that harm, but that is how it manifested, and I can't help but think about the countless children that I have see, am seeing, and will see in my life. Am I continuing the vicious cycle of imparting my own anxiety into future generations? The short answer is no. The long answer follows.

I currently work at a preschool that is rooted in the Montessori Method of education. For those of you who are Montessori ignorant (as I was before I started working there), basically speaking it is a method of educating based on scientific and developmental research that promotes independently paced learning based on student interest and motivation. We structure everything logically, focusing mainly on one aspect of learning at a time, with self-checks so that the kids can know when they do a work correctly or incorrectly. Direct feedback during the learning process. It is pretty amazing-- we have a few 4 year-olds who are delving into material that is first grade level work, and I think those children would have been overlooked and simply out of luck in the regular classroom (or regular preschool, for that matter).

Within the idea of logical learning, we use every moment in our daily life as a moment to learn. A kid is throwing a fit because he doesn't want to put his coat on before we go outside...unfortunately, it's not an option for him to stay inside because it is our outside time where the whole class goes outside. He consequently has two options-- he can put his coat on and come outside, or he can not put his coat and come outside. The teacher has many other students to attend to, so the option of the teacher fighting him to put his coat on is, in fact, not an option. The kid chooses to stand behind his decision to not put his coat on, he goes outside, he's very cold, he learns that it is his responsibility to keep himself warm by putting on his coat. Parents sometimes come into the picture not understanding how we do things, and they get upset to see how we handle a situation (especially the coat issue) because of course every parent wants their child to be comfortable and successful (my parents are exhibit A up above). The thing is, parents, you aren't promoting the best for your child if you aren't helping them think logically for themselves. Independent thinking allows for innovation and creativity, and if we stifle their opportunities to learn, especially at this formative age, we are not enabling or empowering them.

It seems to me that we all entertain irrational fears: fear of spiders, fear of snakes, fear of bugs, fear of heights, fear of mice in your house, fear of dogs, fear of abandonment, fear of failure, fear of embarassment, etc. These fears very well may be rooted in experience, but a lot of times those experiences are not consistent in our lives. I fear failing because I think people would not see me as a competent individual and that they would stop believing that I could make a difference in the world and in people's lives. That affects my whole life. But it's not rational. What people think of me only determines my fate to a certain extent-- I may not get that job that I wanted or I may lose the job I have, I may lose a friend or get a bad grade. Ultimately, my life would move forward, and I would forget about all of those things. Our fears are irrational whether they are rooted in experience or not.

Necessary Christian Connection (and the reason why I have been able to move forward in my anxiety issues)
God calls us to love and be loved and that perfect love, which he offers us, casts out fear. So why is it that some Christians I know are also the most insecure people I know? Shouldn't we look different from the rest of our society because our hope  rests in something so much bigger than our fears? I think most would say yes, but most don't know how to pull themselves out of their fears. That's where our community comes in. The church body that is promoted all throughout the New Testament. We are called to sharpen one another, to rebuke one another, to encourage one another, to speak truth in love to one another. Never are we called to propagate fear in one another or distance ourselves from one another or live alone.

That's where my mission comes in. Our school is that community for these kids. I have been put on this earth and in this particular job to help children see that they are safe and loved, if not all the time, at least by me. It's very difficult to promote that and live that lifestyle out fully and consistently because I am broken and still struggling with my own issues, but I have seen the benefit already of the little bit that I am able to do to help them. They are beautiful people already because my fellow teachers and I challenge them to think, to talk, to act, to deal with their emotions, and to walk through life logically for the purpose of staying grounded and doing their best. They are satisfied and proud that they can solve their own fights with friends and figure work out on their own. They are empowered and enabled, the lack of which is the plight of those impoverished in this world. I am thankful that I get this opportunity to help change the world in whatever small way God empowers and enables me.

Acceptance

As some (all?) of you may know, I love art, music, dance, expression, creativity, etc. I would definitely classify myself into the category of "artsy" people, however, I have always denied identifying myself as an "artist." Things are changing for the better.

In October, I started going to counseling. First of all, I think everyone can benefit from an outside objective voice in their lives. Secondly, and more personally, I like/need to talk things out with people, and I find that she is a great support and outlet for me since there aren't an abundance of people around me 24/7 to listen to me process life. Sometimes I feel like she isn't 100% on board with what I am saying since she is a new friend who isn't constantly a part of my life, but it is good for me to practice explaining everything without having expectations that the other person will understand my context. People generally can't read my mind, and sometimes I treat my closest loved ones as though they should be able to... Anyway, she suggested that I start reading/studying this self-help sort of book called The Artist's Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity. I have to admit, the book is sometimes a little "broad" spiritually, and it makes me work a lot and think a little, but I have gotten some really valuable things out of studying the book so far.

I am only in my second week of study, but I am now able to declare that I am an artist, despite my lack of training in visual art. I am a writer, even if I have never sold a novel. I am a dancer because I dance (duh). I am a musician-- I write music, and it's actually good. It's not good because I judge it according to specific academic criteria necessarily (although, I definitely have my standards being a trained musician), but it is good because I created it and creating things is good. God created the universe and declared it good-- I believe he was excited not only about the product, but also that he created it himself. We are made in God's image and are meant to see creativity in the same light. Our skills can always improve. Our conceptual frameworks will always morph. Letting go of expectations or standards and letting ourselves create is the big battle, but once we allow ourselves to do so and can see that there is worth in practicing creativity, then we are paving the way for our skills to improve and our creative concepts to form more solidly. We start to feel motivated... inspired, even.

Creating things takes energy, concentration, focus, planning, awareness, practice, and most of all it takes rest. God rested on the seventh day. As cliche as that seems, it is a legitimate model for creative people. Have you ever tried just pushing through a writer's block or cutting and pasting through a crafter's block? Generally the results are things you throw away or things you resent. I must rest when I am feeling unmotivated or inspired. I must recharge and refill. I must change my environment and my routine, sit in Starbucks, read a book, take a drive or walk-- fill my life with new images, new people, new sounds, new smells and tastes, new conversations. My inspiration comes when I am not creating.

I'm sure I will be learning more on my journey of "creative healing," but I wanted to take a moment and celebrate my true personal accomplishment of being able to accept and declare the fact that I am an artist. God created you and me, and we are to create to reflect His image to those around us. Living in fear of that creativity is living against God's intentions and will for his people. Take a risk and explore your creativity this week. Send me a copy of whatever you do so I can enjoy it, too! :)

Ecclectic Evening Post

This post, similarly to my last post, is one of little continuity and form. I like it that way. Here are some things that have been speaking to my heart:

1. I had the most wonderful Valentine's Day moment when I was subbing in a Kindergarten classroom on Monday. Mostly all of the students had made little paper bags for their "mailboxes" and brought in valentines to share with their classmates. One little boy wasn't there the day they had made the bags, so I gave him a plastic bag to use. Since his bag wasn't put out on display like everyone else's, I think that his valentines got put either into random bags or thrown away. He ended up with only about three valentines in his bag. Later in the afternoon, we had a time to dump out the valentines and look at all of them, and I was teasing the kids because I hadn't gotten any valentines. That same little boy heard me say, "Well, where's my valentines? Don't I get a valentine from anyone?" and he came over and handed me one of his. He said, in the sweetest little voice, "Here, I kept this one safe for you." My heart melted, and I even felt a bit guilty because I obviously hadn't been serious in my request for a valentine.

Out of the little he had, he gave much. It was a true-blue demonstration of real love from the sweet heart of an innocent child. So much to learn from him. ♥ ♥ ♥

2. Here are the lyrics to Sufjan Stevens's song "Enchanting Ghost" from his EP "All Delighted People" (which is located close to the very top of my favorite music of all time, by the way). He softly and tenderly sings my heartbreak into words and melody in this song. Read them while listening to this:

Tell me what you saw in me

And I'll try to replicate it with a scene

Mm-mmm

If it troubles you to breathe

Wait a moment; I could change the scenery

Don't carry on carrying efforts, no no, oh oh oh oh

Somewhere there's a room for each of us to grow

And if it pleases you to leave me, just go, oh oh oh oh

Stopping you would stifle your enchanting ghost

Mm-mmm

It's only that I meant to bring
Love and liveliness to your breast on the scene
Mm-mmm
Did you cut your hands on me?
Are my edges sharp? Am I pest to feed?

Don't carry on carrying regrets, oh no oh oh oh
Somewhere there's a room for us to speak alone
And if it grieves you to stay here, just go, oh oh oh oh
For I have no spell on you, it's all a ghost
Mm-mmm

I still have the things you gave me
Four anointing oils, the paper weight you made
Mm-mmm
For sure I haven't carried them
Or buried them in the name of your ghost, my friend

Don't carry on carrying efforts: Don't go! No oh oh oh
Stay with me until I sleep within your host
Or if it pleases you to leave me, just go, oh oh oh oh
Stopping you would stifle your enchanting ghost
Mm-mmm

3. I just wanted to publicly declare that I am becoming increasingly excited for my friends Jillian and Owen Pye and their cutest little baby Cash to come to Indy in about a month! Owen is preparing to drop his new album on February 22nd, and then they are all heading out to tour the country. They are making a stop here, and Owen's performing a house show in Fountain Square. I'm excited to spend time with lovely people from home who love art and music like I do. It will be a great weekend with genuinely precious people, and you should come down to Indy to see his show on March 13!

Check out Owen's music and tour details on his website and check out Jillian's lovely etsy shop and her beautiful blog,

Also, here's the recently released stop-motion music video that utilizes both Owen's talent (musical) and Jillian's talents (designing and storywriting):

4. I love that I am constantly learning about my faith and how I interact with God. Today, I read this article about some important lessons that the disciple Thomas teaches us. I found it to be a really fresh analysis of a familiar character's story. 

5. Two goals I set for myself this week are to finish my knitted blanket by hand-sewing some pom-pom trim on it and to invest in one or two board games for entertaining the comp'ny. I achieved the first one today, and it felt so good to accomplish something even though I didn't go to work. A lot of times I lazy away the days that I don't sub. Not today, friends, not today!

With My Own Two Hands

I had a little revelation the other night when I was making "Bugs on a Log," one of my favorite childhood snacks, for dinner. For those of you who don't know, Bugs on a Log consists of celery sticks with peanut butter on them and raisins stuck in the peanut butter, looking like little bugs sitting on a log. It is so good. Anyway, making "Bugs on a Log" is a pretty time consuming task because you have to spread the peanut butter in the little trenches of the celery, and the peanut butter I have is the natural kind and it's chunky, so it's really hard to spread. After spreading the peanut butter and filling the little trenches, you have to dig out some raisins and place each one in the peanut butter. I made about 6 "logs," and it took me close to 20 minutes probably. I could have cooked a real dinner in that amount of time! It seems like a bit of a waste, right? I could have delved into something much more convenient and much more filling during that time. That is missing part of the point of eating "Bugs on a Log" in the first place...making it is half the fun! I realized in this process that I love making things with my hands. This is something I have been aware of for a while now, but this process of making a whimsical children's snack reminded me of how much joy I get out of making things with my own two hands.

I got to thinking, since we have been studying Genesis in church lately, about the curse that God proclaims to Adam and Eve. Eve is given the great duty of bearing children in pain (yay) and Adam is to toil and tend to the land. God wants man to work. It's not that Adam has to work to earn anything back from God, God just needs him to keep himself busy so that maybe he has the potential for giving in to fewer distractions in life. God gave man and woman consequences to help them remember the time that they strayed from God. He wants them to remember their dependence on Him.

Now, I don't know about you, but generally I hate the fact that people have to work. I don't even really understand how our society developed into the one it is today, where someone can be working as an iPhone app developer, making a living off of a random job supporting something totally unnecessary. (That's a topic for another day, I think). I am at that point in my life where I am realizing that even though I want to spend my life doing things I want to do, I have to work in order to survive in this society, whether it's a pointless job that aligns with my worldview and life philosophy or not. That may or may not be what God had intended when he cursed Adam with work, but nonetheless, it's the truth of the matter. It's the reality in my society. In American culture I feel like it is often hard to see the purpose of work, but if I think about people living in other places, like Ethiopia, they are working truly to make a living. They grow their own food in order to eat and hopefully to sell the abundance of what they have for a variety of other things that other people might be selling. From childhood, they learn to work with their families and they spend their lives working, too, even though it may not be in order to buy a new car or flat screen TV.

Being unemployed has given me even more insight into the idea of work. I do not like sitting in my apartment doing nothing. It is not as glamorous as it seems! I am usually so bored and unmotivated. When I have work to do or a schedule to follow, I get enjoyment out of that. I feel purposeful, and honestly I just like doing things with my hands. One of my remedies to the lack of work is making work for myself. I cook usually for both lunch and dinner. I don't have a microwave, so when I mean cook, I really mean it. This has been a tremendously enjoyable activity. Not only am I using my hands and working, but I am also using my creativity, thinking about what flavors go well together, what colors would make the dish look more appetizing, and what kinds of tweaking I could do to the recipes to make them my own. It's amazingly therapeutic and a great creative outlet. As some of you know, I have been struggling with expressing myself in the ways that I normally express myself (mostly through making visual art of some kind), but I am glad to see that other outlets have been presenting themselves. Cooking, playing and writing music, writing on my blog and journaling, plus a little art-making on the side makes for a very aesthetically pleasing "work"-filled life.

Sometimes I think that creating for a living would be so satisfying, but then I remember all the times when I was really frustrated because I couldn't create anything for long amounts of time and I don't think that I would like the pressure of my livelihood standing solely on my ability to create. Being a music teacher is the outflow of my creative desires because I get to teach other people how to engage in expression and creativity without having to exhaust myself by creating and expressing my own ideas and feelings on demand.

When I do get a job, the balance between all of those creative processes will have to look a bit different, although I know I will never stop doing those things completely. I'm really okay with that, as expressing myself all the time can sometimes make me feel crazy. Focused self-awareness and expression, although needed, can become daunting and exhausting tasks. Having some other mindless tasks or even tasks that take the focus away from myself will bring the needed balance to my life, not to mention that every Christian in the world who feels they are living the most purposeful life feels that from serving others and not just themselves. The most interesting thing to me, though, is that no matter the circumstances or motives, I always feel the need to be doing something active, measurable, and purposeful with myself, whether I am earning a living from that work or not. We were cursed to toil, and toil we must.

Self-Expression

There are many things I could write about in this post, as there are a million and one things happening right now-- life changes, heart changes, mind changes-- but instead I'll take to tackling the task of rediscovering my love for art.

One of the most fulfilling things about my life as a human is the ability to express myself. Sometimes I can do it, sometimes others do it for me, but nonetheless, whenever my thoughts are put into music, words, or visual art of some kind, I feel so fulfilled.


I am realizing more and more how inexplicable the affect of art on our souls (or maybe just my soul?) really is. I cannot argue to someone why art is so important in the life of people. I cannot make any logical explanation for why I feel a great sense of peace in those moments when I am accepting my emotions and creating something out of that acceptance. I cannot explain to anyone else why someone else's  lyrics and music can make my heart beat in time and rhythm with what I hear. I cannot explain what relief it is to pound my feet on the floor and swirl my hands all in the air along with the insistent bass of an upbeat song. I cannot explain why when I create something with my own hands I feel as though I was able to pull my thoughts through my fingers and display them in a more understandable way. Try talking to me-- see the pleasure I take in each breath and each sincere proclamation from the floors of my heart chambers, at least when the words are there. When they aren't there, watch to see how my heart is reflected. It is equally raw and real.


Some things I really love about art-- Sillohuettes. Darkness. Tints. Shadows. Unexpected twists and turns. Saturated colors. Texture. Depth. Symbolism. Analogies. Purpose. Meaning. Deliberation. Variety. People within their art.


Art is honest in ways that words alone cannot be. Art conveys its honesty in different levels to different people-- no worries about feeling out that awkward situation and searching for just the right small talk to engage in. Art can break the awkwardness with a bold statement, it can mask the awkwardness subtly, or it can present a distracting focus from the awkwardness altogether without feeling the effects of any of those actions. 


I really love honesty and vulnerability because I think people benefit from stepping outside of their fear and comfort. I am coming to understand, though, that not a lot of people can handle the honest me I often present. I am often times really awkward and/or overwhelming or I come off as aggressive/opinionated/emotionally unstable. Unfortunately, I present myself in nautical knot form. Not many people understand the nautical knots I present in the first place, but when I hold back I tie myself into wrongside-out nautical knots. (Try visualizing that one.) People tend to exhaust me for this reason. I exhaust myself already simply attempting to decipher the code of my thoughts, and when I strive equally to express myself to other people, I'm doubly exhausted.


With art, though, feedback from people isn't necessary. I deeply hope that my art can communicate with people like a lot of art communicates to me, but I may not ever see that communication even if it does occur. I would love to see and hear how people respond to my art, but if I never do, I don't mind because of how fulfilling it is simply to create. The internet provides a similar forum of expression because I can post whatever I want to express and not expect anyone to read it or respond to it. I am not sitting and typing this right to anyone so I don't expect feedback. When I expect feedback I am often disappointed, and with the internet I can express simply for expression's sake. For art's sake. Maybe also to shield from disappointment, but is that such a bad thing?















The next thing to discover: how to make mistakes successfully and make them beautiful, in both art and life.