+all is calm, all is bright

How our home looks for the holidays! Merry Christmas to all, I just figured my gift to all of you today should be some warm, cozy pictures. Love!

+good times never seem so good, i've been incline to believe it never would

In the whirlwind of the past week, what has happened? I finished my first semester of grad school. Finished up the final paperwork and emails to leave for a couple of weeks. I packed, said sweet sad goodbyes, and hopped onto two flights that took me back to Birmingham, AL, my home. I rushed from the airport to a Bachelorette Party to a day of preparing and rehearsing to a day of celebration of a beautiful couple that I have loved dearly for years and years. I wanted to put some pictures from their photographer's blog (http://simple-color.com/blog/?p=8065).

Ahh, more on refelctions later. Just know I'm a happy camper. I'm Christmas shopping. And not living in a residence hall. And I'm brewing coffee in the mornings. And watching Grey's Anatomy and reading... for FUN. Ahh, yes, Winter Break. Blessed? I. Am.

The home that was the location of too many sleepovers, nsync dance parties, homecoming pictures, prom pictures, and more became the place where we took pictures just moments before Melissa Joseph became Melissa Miller.

Memory lane... 4 1/2 years ago.

We couldn't get our eyes off the beautiful bride.

I cannot get over how wonderful these two are together.

+and you watch as the changes unfold, and you sort among the stories you've been told

If having your long-distance boyfriend visit from out of town and gettin' dressed up for a formal aren't reason enough to create a blog post, I don't know what is! Also, what better time to introduce you to a couple of lady-friends I have made here (now that we actually have pictures together!)?

So in honor of dresses, Christmas time, and Devon, a picture post...

this would be miss brianna mae. or bmae. or miss mae. depending on the day.

this is how we typically look.

this would be THE devon neisen

this is how we typically look.

this would be miss greta simons. we do not have a different picture. this is how we typically look. dressed up and smiling properly.

+and even on the phone you're eight hours from my time

Thanksgiving, giving of thanks, a day of thanks…

I don’t know if thankfulness says it well enough. I think that thankfulness doesn’t begin to explain the circumstances that I currently enjoy. The ability to have free time, for instance, is a luxury that I forget to be thankful for. I am privileged to come from a family who has provided for me financially and physically, who has taught me lessons and enabled me to sustain myself as a twenty-something.  I’m not just saying privileged as a passing adjective to assert my place in the world. I am saying it as a holy-cow-who-decided-me realization. 

I do not believe it is without responsibility but I do not understand it completely yet. I know that I have money, expendable money, that while I work hard, I still have time to breathe. I live in a room all by myself and I have more clothes than I could wear in a year. I own not one pair of shoes but dozens and I not only eat, I probably eat too much. I have time to work out, I have money to pay for a phone and time to talk on it.

I own a car and have money to put gas into it, DVDs and books and a computer and a TV. An ipod and a kindle, a really nice camera, lamps, clocks, jewelry, photos, decorations, curtains, bedding, notes, cards, geez louise…everything.

I certainly don’t need anything for Christmas. I have loved ones to see and enough money to travel home to see them. More than all of these material things I have relationships. I have a God who loves me and has given me each and every one of these things. I think it is incredible how I do not need any of these things, yet I have a job to sustain their presence in my life, right?

So how do I refocus my life to understand this gift of God? Would I actually be happy with less? Would I maintain my resolve of thankfulness with none of the blessings in my life? Isn’t being alive at all a blessing? I’ve tried to think it through…what if my entire place burned down, or my parents lost their jobs, or something else tragic happened – would I still be so “thankful” or would I curse God and desire pity and people to cater to me? I regretfully think that the latter would be more likely to occur.

Solomon, Solomon, ever since I ready your words about your lessons with wisdom and God you’ve tied my mind in knots…

+language is the liquid that we're all dissovled in

I've been spending some quality time with a coffee shop I love on Mass. Street today. Today is one of those absolutely peaceful days - my halls are closed, I have two big papers and a final project to make headway on, and in the past week I have celebrated Thanksgiving properly with wonderful gatherings of people. I feel blessed, and even though I will not be spending Thanksgiving Day with my parents or sisters or boyfriend or friends, I know that I have a lot to be thankful for and it makes me all the more excited about Christmas break.

But, I did get the chance to listen to a British faculty member talk to a young couple at the coffee shop. I don't pride myself on eavesdropping, but when a group talks loudly and it's a small coffee shop, it happens. I believe I've heard this conversation before that goes something like this..

American Couple: "We have been to Europe and love it, Americans are clueless."
British Man: "Oh yes, it's a beautiful place, people are not afraid to be themselves there."
American Couple: "Exactly! America is all about conformity, conformity, conformity..."
British Man: Insert comment about the age of buildings, the pace of life
American Couple: Insert redundant affirmation
British Man: Insert praise and approval of Europen culture
American Couple: Insert comment about Farmer's Market / Organic Store
British Man: Insert moderate approval and suggestion "If you every go back to England, you should go..."

Yes, I've heard this before. Maybe you've heard it before. The affirmation that other cultures "have it right" or that they "have it figured out." I understand that people love other places. And that the romanticism of visiting those places and being different than the way we were raised is heady. But sometimes, I feel like what you look for is what you see.

There are individuals here in Lawrence, Kansas. People are not afraid to be themselves...if you look for those people. This conversation reminded that we are willing to look at other cultures as individuals and see the beauty of their distinctiveness, but we are very quick to make assumptions about "American Society." We have to look for the individuals here the same way we do when we take a month or a semester to travel abroad.

I've never studied abroad, and so I do not know first-hand these differences, but I have had a lot of conversations with folks who have and I do know that people live different everywhere and within ever culture people are living counter-culture. Please, reminisce on your good experiences, but if you love them so much, please go back and live there. Orrrrr just take the time to get to know me - sitting here writing graduate school papers, without my family on Thanksgiving, and tell me that I'm just the average lazy selfish American. Or step onto every college campus and meet a couple of students who are speaking their minds and expressing themselves uniquely, that may change your mind. I'm thankful for America, despite the cruelties spoken against it. It is where I live and where I will more than likely continue to live for the majority of my life.

Just thoughts of my day.

+sparklers only burn for so long

+this is my anthem, this is my song, the theme of the stories i've heard for so long

"A man's character may be learned from the adjectives which he habitually uses in conversation" -Mark Twain

If you know me, you know I love seasons. Yes, ones in nature, but really just seasons of life, seasons of the year, seasons of relationships. So working at a University directly with students fits me well - ahhh the season of an academic year. It's that time of year where students are getting sick, discouraged, and unmotivated. They are wishing more than all else to call it quits, to go home for Thanksgiving next week and never come back. Being a student myself, I totally understand. I miss the season of the start of school when a fresh set of pens, crisp notebooks, and new friends just as much as the next student.

But I think more than anything, I am learning what Mr. Mark Twain said above... we learn another person's character by the way they speak about their circumstances. If someone sees only the negatives about the work to be done, the push to the end, you learn an insight into their character. Whereas the person who pushes back and sees the privilege and opportunity afforded in even being able to study at a university begins to talk with hope and promise and excitement of the last bit of work. But isn't the big picture the hardest to see? Lesson for me, too.

+i can't remember a trial or a pain, he did not recycle to bring me gain

Sara Groves has been one of my favorite Christian artists since sometime in high school when Jennifer Pitts (now Ballard) introduced me to her awesome lyrics and sweet voice. Since then, if she has something new out I normally buy it or at the very least listen to it. So I was so excited to find Sara's version of "Great is Thy Faithfulness." I love the way she puts things into terms that are so comforting and reassuring. Like the line "The power and comfort of God's hand in mine."


So here are the lyrics if you're interested...
And the you tube so you can hear it... pardon the randomness of the video, just listen :)


He's Always Been Faithful

"Morning by morning I wake up to find
The power and comfort of God’s hand in mine
Season by season I watch Him, amazed
In awe of the mystery of His perfect ways
All I have need of, His hand will provide
He’s always been faithful to me.

I can’t remember a trial or a pain
He did not recycle to bring me gain
I can’t remember one single regret
In serving God only, and trusting His hand
All I have need of, His hand will provide
He’s always been faithful to me.

This is my anthem, this is my song
The theme of the stories I’ve heard for so long
God has been faithful, He will be again
His loving compassion, it knows no end
All I have need of, His hand will provide
He’s always been faithful, He’s always been faithful
He’s always been faithful to me."

+no second guesses or secret signs

Four months into knowing Lawrence, KS and today may be the first where I sat down and called it home. Learning cities takes time, but that time seems so worth it. Feeling at home is so worth it.

"The" bridge that takes us away.
The spot my car parks at the lake.
Knowing the majority of coffee shops in town and which one I prefer.
Knowing the culture and knowing how people will respond.
Knowing the local library.
Voting in Douglas County.
Making breakfast for the homeless.
Knowing where the pot holes are...and where to swerve around them.
Knowing which roads are one-ways.
Being able to identify streets with landmarks like "that yellow house" or "the apartments with the rickety stairs"
Finding a church where the sermons stick with me all week. 
Having a partner in crime, who knows how I take my coffee.
Discovering old stores like they are ancient treasures.
Signing up for things I never would before.
Having a Kansas license.
Feeling comfort in staying put.

"Chariots, if you're out there, please swing low / tell me I got here at the right time / If I did it's probably the first time / No second guesses or secret signs / Just tell me I got here at the right time." -Josh Ritter

+o, where's there to go? circumnavigate the globe

I intended to sit down this afternoon and blog about my recent conference experience, but all I have seemed inspired to write about is old love. Constant, loyal, old love. One of my friends and I decided to have a lazy Saturday down on Mass Street in Lawrence, KS. Laughing like two little girls, we just bounced around from brunching to window shopping to rummaging through the used book store, stumbling upon old gems and witty titles, skipping down the street to the tune of a street musician. It felt so good to be myself and for her to be herself and to not feel that need to act and that need to impress or talk about work or seriousness. The chilling wind, a reminder that winter is fast approaching, but the sun reminding us that Summer was in the not-so-distant past.

I've been struggling with a constant nagging cough and cold, so our couple hour venture wore me out like none other, but as I lie here about to go back to sleep with a second dose of medicine, I cannot help but contemplate about how much belief I have in old love. Love that is hand-in-hand acknowledgment that life is hard and that each day can be a struggle to find meaning. It is the knowledge that fights happen... confusion, and frustration happens, and that commitment to be with one another won't change. Love that looks like wrinkly hands, yellow gold and tarnished rings, gray hair, and hunched backs. Love that looks each new year in the face and says "Let's go!" I am young and I don't understand love standing the test of time for decades, but I do know that if I have one life purpose, it will be to understand that kind of love and to call it my very own.

"Swear when you say at the end of the day / It's not the same old song. / You've got new chords I've never heard before / And I'm ready to sing along. / The stars align in the sky / Though the floor falls out when we try. / You don't need to worry / Baby I'm your confidence man." Matt Pryor