We Have Got to Pray Just to Make it Today

I seem to be having a lot of conversations about prayer lately. We can talk about the theme-y nature of my life later - for now, let's focus on the prayer thing. Would you think less of me if I told you I think I only really figured out how to pray this last year?

I mean, I've prayed through my entire life. I memorized prayers as a child, we prayed over meals, I prayed in Sunday school and in church. My parents and grandparents prayed with me at bedtime, I prayed for things I wanted or needed, I prayed for my friends. I went to camp and had prayer-filled mountain top experiences, I showed up for "See You at the Pole" in high school, and, on my more spiritual days, I woke up early and prayed over Bible passages. I went through a serious crying out phase, where I begged, argued, and pleaded in prayer, which led to a praying for forgiveness phase, during which I also begged, argued, and pleaded. Then came the years of praying to forget the life I might have had, praying for contentment, for new purpose, for resolution. And finally, I began to pray in gratitude, prayers of thanksgiving, prayers of praise, prayers that were maybe just a tiny bit less about me.

Yet in all of that praying, I'm not sure I ever felt like I was accomplishing anything. I spent years treating prayer like a monologue in which dramatic little me laments or just generally carries on about something and sure, I believed God could hear me, but it never felt like taking action. Prayer felt like the thing I did when I couldn't think of anything to actually do. I could never really wrap my heart around the idea that praying, just praying, was better and more effective than any action my feeble brain and body could perform.

There's a sermon I love by John Wimber of Vineyard Movement fame in which he shares the long, angsty story of his journey to Christ. In one part of the story, he's estranged from his wife, and winds up on the side of the road desperate for answers. He's not been a believer up until this point, but he prays "God, if you're there, help me." If I'm remembering correctly, there's a message from his wife when he returns to his hotel, asking him to come home. "And I thought," he says, "Hey! I'm in touch with a supernatural!" That's sort of the way I've felt this year: in touch.

Because this year, I've been looking for answers. I'm not sure why this piece never clicked for me, why I've spent so much of my life believing that God is great and good and still throwing out random words and never expecting much to come of them. This year, I've vowed to pay attention. I've started to pray with intention, to write down the words, and to actively look for the response. Here's the crazy, news flash to Karyn and obvious to everybody else part: God is all over this prayer thing. I love going back through my journal and reading past prayers and marveling over how perfectly and specifically those answers showed up. Before this year, I could probably count for you on one hand the number of times I'd noticed God really answering a prayer. They're great stories, don't get me wrong, but I wasn't listening. God was always answering, but I wasn't actually seeking answers so much as just throwing out ideas and complaints to the greater universe. It was as though I kept posting questions on some sort of cosmic message board and never coming back to check for a reply. Lame, lazy, irresponsible, and typical... but awfully easy to do.

Here's the thing: I'd been treating prayer as though it were passive instead of active, as though it was the alternative to action instead of an action in its own right. I love that, after 27 years of being in this relationship, I'm still figuring out the basics, and I do mean basics, of life with God. This year, I'm trying to remember that prayer is a conversation, and that I have follow-up to do. The fantastic part is, when I do follow up - when I revisit my past prayers and spend some time thinking about how they were answered - I get to see how I am being heard. Heard! I mean, that's sort of amazing, right? I'm in touch with a supernatural. Time to start acting like it.

It is good to have a God who listens, who responds, who engages. It is good to feel like prayer is action, and powerful action, and to watch it work. It is good to be loved, and good to learn to hear.

love.

So let me tell you about my mom...

When I was a freshman in college, I decided to dye my hair the hottest hot pink possible. Though there is simply no way my mother could have been in favor of this less-than-stellar decision, she set up a chair for me on the backyard lawn of our Los Gatos home. We laughed as she gently transformed the dirty blonde that had traveled genetically through generations, from her father's head to hers and then to mine, into the most unnatural of comic book magentas. She worked the pink in patiently by hand, being careful not to drip or smear, warning me to keep my eyes closed, mindfully avoiding coloring my ears. We rinsed the dye out with ice-dagger water from the garden hose, giggling and shivering in early fall, because there was no way she was letting it get anywhere near the house.

This is the most perfect picture I can paint for you of my mother: her laughter and easy, judgment-free assistance in a project she can't possibly have been behind combined with her quietly practical ability to never let my messes get too out of hand. From the very earliest of my memories, my mother has loved me and celebrated me for exactly who I am. Through successes that made her genuinely proud and failures and bad ideas that extend far beyond flamingo hair color, I have been first and always hers, a truth she has never allowed me to forget. I am aware that not everyone has been loved in this way. I wish that wasn't true.

My mother has always treated me like an equal, like a friend whose opinion she values and whose company she covets. There has never been a secret too dark to tell her or an announcement that has kept her from loving me fiercely, relentlessly, and unmistakeably. She has made being our mother her life's work, and she has done it with grace, creativity, beauty, and a whole lot of style. And I have had the privilege of growing up with a mom who has always shown up, always seen me through, and always been the person to whom I can return from any circumstance and be received with love.

I have been so very, very blessed.

The older I get, the more I am able to recognize the gift I've been given. I listen to stories from friends who rarely speak to their moms, or brides who can't handle the pressure their overbearing mothers are applying, and I mutter prayers of gratitude under my breath. Gratitude because I will never understand what it feels like not to have my mom on speed dial, to have her be the first person I want to share news with and the only one I want to call in a crisis. Thank God, because without her, I have absolutely no idea what I would do.

I kept the pink hair for a few months, and most people I knew eventually got around to asking: "Geez, what did your mom say?" How I enjoyed telling them she had dyed it herself, with laughter, under a tree in our backyard, because I am loved in an extraordinary way. I hope she knows how loved she is in return.

Happy Mother's Day, Mom. You know there aren't enough thank yous. But thank you all the same.

love.

Happy May 6th

I wish I could say this was unusual behavior on our part... but...



Well. Typical.

Photos by the incomparable Will Campbell.

Happy May 6th, everybody!

Once More, With Feeling

My co-worker Jennie is the most authentically enthusiastic person I've ever met.

For most of my life, I've been the girl that is on board for just about everything. I've been the kid that everyone is telling to calm down, quiet down, simmer down... and Jennie puts me to shame. Jennie makes me look mellow. Jennie makes me seem downright dull.

My other co-workers and I love to watch Jennie work. She is so relentlessly herself, and greets our brides in crazy voices with accompanying arm gestures in ways that often cause them to be momentarily stunned. When she first started, I think we all worried that people would be a little, well, concerned by her excitement. We're idiots, because our customers fall in love with this girl. And it isn't because she's goofy, or funny, or full of character voices and inappropriately loud sounds and dance routines (though she is all of those things). It's because she's genuine. That enthusiasm, that big ball of hoopla that she chucks without hesitation at everyone who comes through the door, that's the real thing. She is simply that happy, that happy in general and that happy for you, and brides and everyone else around her can't help but drink it up.

What I love about Jennie is a quality that I doubt she recognizes. I suspect that, when considering her own personality, Jennie would tell you she's a little much. What I doubt she realizes is that "little much" is one of the most fantastically Christ-like characteristics I've encountered. Jennie is a little ball of light because she sees reasons to rejoice all around her, and more importantly, in the people she interacts with. She looks at someone, anyone, and sees pieces that are beautiful and worth getting excited about. I wish I could snag a little of her magic. I can see great things in folks, but I don't know how often I let them move me to the level of committed enthusiasm in which this girl lives her every day. People fall in love with her because she makes them feel loved.

I can't help but think there's a little bit of Jennie in our Creator (or, more likely, a whole lot of our Creator in Jennie.) Because, when we come before our God, I don't think he phones it in or goes through the motions. I don't think He's bored, or annoyed, or tired from His big long day. I think He looks at us and sees the beautiful that is Him in us and us with Him, and I think He gets excited. I think He meets us with every ounce of His almighty enthusiasm, delights in us, and invites us to jump up and down along with Him.

I'm so grateful for Jennie, and for her constant reminder to celebrate who we are as individuals and the individuality of those we interact with every day. She challenges me to put more of myself into my conversations, and reminds me that there are things, so many things, worth getting excited about. Because the fact that we have a big God who gets bigtime amped up about hanging out with insignificant, lousy, lazy, smelly, barely average us is sort of a miracle. We are idiots with a magnificent, all powerful supernatural who knows our names, who delights in us. And that, my friends, is worthy of a little enthusiasm.

"The Lord delights in those who fear Him, who put their hope in His unfailing love." Psalm 147:11

love.

Doing Oprah proud...

...by making over my blog. Still squinting a little from the brightness of the whole thing, but I think I dig it. Thoughts?

You are lovely, the lot of you, and I hope you know how very thankful I am for you. I'm praying that blessings abound for you today. I hope God knocks your socks off.

love.

Spring Manifesto

It's raining, Portland. It's raining, but don't be fooled.

Spring is coming. Heck, spring is basically here.

Here's the plan:

This spring and summer, I will remember that these days, the perfect ones with the breezes and the sunshine and the irresistible flowertreesmell wafting around all poetically, these days are numbered. I will take advantage of them fully. I will frequent parks and swingsets. I will dance on my patio, I will play my guitar under stars in the backyard, I will build campfires. I will seek out the ocean and jump in it. I will go barefoot. I will drink iced tea.

I will take advantage of the amazing resources at my fingertips in this city. I will explore. I will learn new neighborhoods, take long walks, and blaze new trails. I will hike, bike, blade, skip, and paddle my way through every piece of nature I can find. I will go to the zoo and get ice cream cones. I will ride carnival rides. I will try to remember that cotton candy smells better than it tastes. I will eat it anyway.

I will be taking my meals on the patio, thankyouverymuch.

I will remember that the best things in spring are free. I will sit on my front porch with good friends and glasses of wine and watch the world go by. I will invest in long, lazy conversations. I will get to know strangers and start to call them mine. I will attend BBQs. I will wear cotton dresses and twirl my little heart out. I will sleep outside. I will make peace with mosquitoes. I will campout. I will stage midnight jam sessions with kidnapped friends in my parents' big backyard. I will soak up the sun.

Who's with me?

love.

Lead, Follow, or Get Out of the Way

When you're 13, and easily a foot taller than all of the girls and almost all of the boys in your middle school, and you're in theater, you are pretty dang likely to wind up playing a dude in the school play. Which is exactly what I was doing almost fifteen years ago - playing one of the mighty forest rangers in Rolling Hills Middle School's production of Little Mary Sunshine. I'd been called back for the romantic female lead and lost it to a cuter, shorter, girly-er girl named Katrina. To add insult to injury, I had a huge crush on the male lead, and instead of being conveniently, theatrically thrown into his arms, I was cast in my usual role as his buddy. But I digress...

I found myself remembering Little Mary Sunshine last Saturday night. My friend Annie, who is fantastic in ways that merit description in her very own blog post and simply cannot be squished into this one, had a birthday party with a Great Gatsby theme. And though I didn't have to dress as a dude, I did have to dance like one. Swing dance lessons (continuity check?) and a shortage of men put me back in my eight grade position - on the wrong side of a partnership, trying to reverse everything my body naturally wants to do and lead.

Men, we owe you an apology. We give you a lot of flack about not stepping up into your leadership roles. We complain about how you never want to get married, you never take initiative, you don't ask us out. We whine and whine about the lack of strong, capable men who want families and responsibility and picket fences. We lament our singleness, praise each other for being patient and strong, and completely fail to consider one major detail: leading is hard, man. Seriously hard.

I mean, there I am, doing absolutely nothing that even resembles difficult on the dance floor, and I'm stressed out. What do you mean, I have to make a decision? I have to know I'm going to turn her how early? I'm losing my mind trying to keep my feet moving while thinking two steps ahead and attempting to decide what our next move is going to be. And the whole time, this girl across from me is just looking at me like "Hello? Anytime! This is painfully boring and you're taking for-ev-er and just make a move already!" I'm caving from the pressure, and this isn't real life. This is just a costume party in somebody's living room.

Men, I'm sorry. I'm sorry because the task you have before you is not an easy one. I'm sorry for the times I've been impatient, or belittling, or just plain whiny in your general directions. But you should know, we believe in you. That girl across from you, the one looking at you like she's never seen anyone more clumsy or awkward in her whole life, that girl has total confidence in your ability to make a good call. She's on your side. She and I have probably spent hours talking about you, and you always come out on top. We won't fight you if you try to turn us, and we won't think less of you if you step on our toes in the process. We want this whole thing to go well, too, and we'll help you out in any way we can. We're not expecting perfection- hell, we're bored to tears by perfection. We just want to dance. Even with, especially with, two-left footed, overwhelmed, directionless, charming, fearfully and wonderfully God-designed you.

I'm glad, ultimately, that I only have to play a dude in musicals and at dance parties. Because as lame as it sometimes is to wait, as frustrated as we sometimes get, every once in a while we get to let someone spin us around and around. And that's pretty great.

Go tell the men in your life you appreciate them. Pray for them. Say yes if they ask you to dance.

love.