Interruptions to the Creed series

And no, I don't mean Creed as in the 'can you take me higher' stuff.

I mean, this exploration of me trying to understand the Nicene Creed and my own current belief system.

This is an interruption in several ways.

1. I've been super busy and haven't had the time to write down my thoughts.
2. My personal down time from being busy has been consumed by reading lots and lots of interesting articles online (thanks facebook friends! :D ) that have actually been making me think about things in a completely different way. I'm wondering if it's even a worthwhile endeavor to go through the Creed, when I don't think that having the right 'belief' is the most important thing anymore. Here are a few of the articles I've thought are noteworthy, and you should take a look. I might try to go into more depth on what I think of them at a later time.

• John Shore: The only language you and God share
• Rebecca Trotter: Do you read scripture like a Pharisee or like Jesus?
• Interview with Karen Armstrong: Karen Armstrong on the 'The Bible'
• Frank Schaeffer: Why Evangelical Bible Idolatry Sucks and Why I Go to a Greek Orthodox Church Even Though It’s A Mess Too 
• John Shore: Grace: Everything's Gonna Be Alright 
• Fred Clark: The all-or-nothing lie of fundamentalist Christianity

3. I went a little crazy last night. Like delirious from being stressed. I had to go to the doctor without insurance and the last of my money only paid for half of it. Flabbergasted at generosity that I don't deserve. Getting lost on the way to work and being late because of the stupid doctor's office taking three frickin hours. Trying to balance wardrobe crises from both of my jobs, while not being able to be present for both. My car almost got towed. All of this on a less than stellar sleeping and eating pattern that I've barely maintained since August. Or maybe even since I started grad school.

So I went a little crazy. I yelled at God while driving home from set. I don't think I've ever yelled at God. I always assumed that it's something you Just. Don't. Do. Don't disrespect or anger the guy in the sky, because he might punish you for it. Just like how I've heard people say stuff like, 'don't ask God to soften your heart for such-and-such, because he just might give you what you want.' Yesterday was simply one of the most stress-filled days I've had in at least the last five years (which happens to include senior year at Westmont, an incredibly stressful time and nothing compared to my yesterday). I'm so tired of feeling the way I do. And the funny thing is, I felt better after yelling at God. It felt amazing to completely express the anger I feel toward God and the world. I have been so angry this past year because of how very 'not okay' everything is in my life and the world. Afterwards, I felt goofy and weird and free. I felt more like myself than I have in the past year. I was willing to just say anything and do anything. I didn't care if it was wrong or going to offend or make me look stupid. Because all the yelling and all the anger I let go at the guy in the sky meant there weren't any consequences because I probably pissed him off anyway.

Except for the fact that that very line of reasoning goes against everything I think I believe about God. It's a thought pattern that lives inside me and I can't shake it. I hate it with all the brain power I can muster. I feel like I've never known how to understand grace and forgiveness of God. All my life I've been told about the truth of it only to have them (usually pastors and their sermons) turn around and say that I'm not good enough, I don't deserve anything, you're a big fat ol sinner. Come to the cross, they say. Nail your sins to the cross. What about the sin of not loving yourself enough? Because I'd like to hear one.

4. I'm angry that I don't understand where or when my faith as I knew it up and left. I'm angry that I'm so lonely. I'm angry that 'being a Christian' has never helped that loneliness go away. I'm angry that the ritual of non-denominational church practice is paraded as the best way to discover God and I feel like I've never known 'him.' I'm angry that I don't know if God actually exists. I'm angry about how conservative Christian political right values pervades my existence despite my best efforts to run away from it. I'm angry at all the ways that I have felt shamed by the church for no effing good reason. I'm angry that 'freelance' means that I work 90 hours a week, seven days a week for less than minimum wage. I'm angry that beliefs I don't agree anymore with are ingrained into my consciousness that my knee-jerk reactions are things that I don't want. I'm angry that healthcare costs so much, with or without insurance. I'm angry that it's not feasible to take public transportation for my job because gasoline ruins both my budget and the environment. I'm angry at men like Todd Akin. I'm angry that this world doesn't treat women with more respect. I'm angry at the constant focus on sex. I'm angry that the church has an obsession with genitals rather than compassion for the poor and needy. I'm angry that I'm so busy trying to make enough money just to buy food that I don't actually take action on my beliefs about helping the poor and needy. It makes me feel guilty, even though I'm just trying to survive my own damn life.

I need love so badly.
Where is the redemption?

Where did my heart go? It's been three and a half years since it skipped a beat for anyone. Where has it gone?

Perhaps it went for a swim in the depths of the Mariana Trench and got lost. Or maybe it hitch hiked its way through the Rockies and got bit by poisonous snake. Or maybe it's been spending all its gold on fortifying the castle walls.

I miss that playful joyful skip.

broken and beautiful

This lovely little creature was on my car's hood today. It was lying on its side, its wings a little worse for wear. I helped it stand up with an index card I dug out of my glove box. Broken, but beautiful. A little bit like me.

I left it in a eucalyptus tree next to the parking lot before I drove away. I don't know how long it will stay alive. But that's the way life is. We're born, we die, we live somewhere in between. Spreading creativity and beauty as best we can.

oh, little ol' me

I'm just a messed up girl
who thinks too much
and likes talking about emotions
but I rarely do so aloud.
So I guess that means I think too much there too.

Most of all, I want to connect with people.
I want love. To have love: give love.
That's what we must do.
Fill up and overflow.

I'd love to wander down that street. I imagine it's Paris. Oh, to be in Paris once more! To be in Paris and just be. Be outside a sidewalk café with un cafe et une crème brûlée. Except I don't drink un café. I'd rather have une tasse de thé.

you just can't count on people

It's a cliche, but it's kind of true. And kind of isn't.

You can't count on friends to give you what you need (and how are they to know what you need in the first place?).
You can't count on flirtatious texting.
You can't count on your mattress to stay fluffy.
You can't count on returned phone calls.
You can't count on your family to always be understanding.

I think this kind of contemplation is a little disheartening, more because I feel like it's a reflection on me, and perhaps less on my fellow humanity (because, of course, it's all about me). I say this because I'd like to think that I am the sort of person that people can count on to be there, to call, to encourage, to...anything. But, I do mess up. I say the wrong thing occasionally. Or the awkward thing. I couldn't be everything he wanted me to be.

The only one you can count on is God. And sometimes he seems more like an invisible friend than anything else. But he's not. He's real. And knowing that, is truly a gift.

same ol' same ol'

I've been reading through some past blogs. I seem to write about the same things over and over again. Am I actually growing and learning, or am I just rehashing my crazy issues about how to relate to the world?

blech

I think I might be a strange combination of Summer and Tom from (500) Days of Summer.

Tom characteristics: hopeless romanticism, obsessed with falling in love, inability to actualize inner feelings

Summer characteristics: inability to fall in love

One Sweet Love

Some days I wake up with a song stuck in my head. It's usually an indication of the state of my soul. This morning it's "One Sweet Love" by Sara Bareilles. If I actually lived according to my feminist ideals, that song would not be haunting me as of late. I am full of contradictions.

"A nameless face to think I see to sit and watch the waves with me, til they're gone."

Dear Internet Void,

How are you? I am doing well. I'm hoping you can answer a question for me: What is the "Real World" like? I've heard about it my entire life, but have yet to really understand where to find it. For example, when something disappointing happens, people will dryly say, "Welcome to the Real World." Or when people talk about graduating college, they talk about when they are "out in the Real World." Yet, despite an apparent assumption that there is an underlining universal understanding of the Real World, I have yet to encounter a satisfying description of it.

Most explanations of the Real World come from my extensive viewings of films, but I'm not sure if that is an accurate source for discovering the Real World. It is much more difficult to trust other people than what is often suggested on screen. I cannot identify with the Wealthy Successful Protagonist Who Is Handsome. Film cannot capture the depths of loneliness.

What I experience of life is so different from film and books, but what I know of life does not match this mythical idea of Real World. I often wonder why we make the decisions we do, especially when Time is fleeting, yet we spend most of our lives complaining about being either too busy or too bored.

If the Real World is mythical, and I have a certain view of the world, but ultimately I wish for the Real World to be like something else in order to exist in that kind of Real World, then where have I gotten myself to? Another illusion of reality?

With a year of graduate school come and gone, I wonder what life I hold in my hands? I was not the person I wanted to be. These walls around my heart kept me from reaching for the new, rather, I longed for the old things that are no longer mine.

I wish that the Real World could look a little bit more like Love.

job hunting

I've been going around to all the restaurants in Valencia looking for a job. I hate job hunting, but it must be done. I must pay my rent.

I hope that something works out soon because I feel very restless. And living in a house where half the people are gone and most of my friends from CalArts are gone, I'm starting to feel lonely. I need to get in the habit of calling people soon or I'm going to get very lonely and depressed and that's never a good thing.

I watched Moulin Rouge last night. It provided an odd emotional reaction for me this time around. While I was moved, at the same time all I could think was "well, that kind of love doesn't exist." Am I turning cynical? Have I become jaded by my bad love experiences (or rather the lack of good ones)? Le sigh.

tear down this wall

I am, as of late, realizing how many walls I've built up around me and through me, to the point where I cannot move. I am not Lynne when I am at this school because I do not share my full and true self with very many people. There is not much truth remaining in the stony version of me. It's no wonder I feel so alone when I do not reach out to others myself. I'm just scared is all, because I care too much about what they think. I'm scared of getting hurt...again. The healing is so hard and so arduous. Yet what is life, but suffering? If I were the honest version of myself, I would just love. That's it. Love.

Over a year and half

Since.
Commencement.
Graduation.

Graduation into what?

My brain has turned to mush.
I live day to day, week to week, barely thinking.
Not the way I used to.
And yet exactly the way I used to.
Before Westmont.

The words simmer under a surface, yet struggle to get out.

In the end
I just feel stupid
And
Uncreative


Maybe I'm just lazy, because I have to practice in order to communicate
Better

And if I am just lazy, then I have become someone I hate.
Always asking what can I do to get by
Never reading the newspaper
Always wanting to look a certain way
Never having enough things

I do not want to be a product of this America, yet I can feel its claws sinking into my skin.

Is it possible to live in such a way that I don't care what other people think of me? If you know how, please tell me.


I want to write more. Not just on this silly thing, but really write. What is it that I have to offer to this world?
I think I've completely forgotten.

I want my life to feel magical.

good night, and good luck

I sit alone in a dimly lit room typing away at the nothingness of the internet. I say nothingness because despite the hours and hours we devote to it, it gives nothing in return. We may feel like we're a community on these various social networking sites, but it's mostly a facade of timewasting. At least that's how I've felt over the past few months where my own personal internet exchanges have felt severely lacking in some way.

I heard a quote one Sunday at Cornerstone Church. Francis Chan said it, but he said someone else had said it originally, but I don't remember who that someone was supposed to be. Nevertheless it goes something like this: If nothing else, facebook proves that lack of prayer is not for lack of time.
Begging your pardon, but that was severely paraphrased. I know I wrote it down somewhere, but I can't seem to find it.

I suppose I could say that it is for lack of time that I have not updated this blog or my other one. I was quite busy with assisting on Hellzapoppin, the mainstage show at CalArts this fine fall semester. It would appear that it was when I received a break and finally allowed myself a moment to relax that the illness I have felt lingering in my body for the past month decided to spring up. Headache, sniffles, slight sore throat. It's only the beginnings, but I still have hopes that I might be able to beat it away with a big stick.

Hellzapoppin. An entertaining show that lacked coherency and tried to do to many things at once. I wished to feel that communal sense you get when you work on a show and get to know the actors and such, but since I was assistant and not designer, that didn't really happen the way in which I wished it to. I suppose the stress of trying to figure out what the hell I'm doing in my costume classes too would effect that. The designs I'm producing are not the designs I usually produce. I'm bored with the historicity of the class. My designs lack character. I am not investing myself in them as much as I should and this might have something to do with the high turn over rate of each project.

Suffice it to say that going to grad school is tough (not that I expected it to be easy). I think I expected it to be tough in a different way. Which way, I'm not sure. Sometimes I feel like the other people here are really just pretentious bastards hiding behind a facade of intellectualism and critique. But there are many who are not pretentious bastards and those are the ones I befriend more often.

And now I will change the subject and talk about Darren.

This is Darren:
Darren is my boyfriend.

Darren and I met online. The first thing he messaged me about was how Han Solo is a "witty gunslinger archetype." We've been going out for about a month now. I like him, he adores me, so it all works out. So....yeah. Don't really know what else to say about him.

Guess that's it for the life update. Until I have more to post to this silly thing: good night, and good luck.

Oh, and happy thanksgiving.

ray of light through the window

Something I've posted frequently on how I have trouble trying to reconcile my past and my present. The faith I was raised in vs. the faith I discovered through learning at Westmont. It's hard to see sometimes how the two fits together.

I finally started reading this book that I bought a few months ago. Jesus Wants to Save Christians. It has been absolutely revolutionary for me. The book shows how what I've learned at Westmont and the faith I want to ascribe to is truer to the Way of Christ than most of what I've experienced before. I've heard over and over throughout my life that evangelism meant handing out Bible tracts and going on overseas mission trips. And I've heard over and over again that evangelism also meant that you live like Jesus in your everyday life. But no one really explained what that actually meant. So if you never understand, it doesn't make much of a difference in your life when all you hear is that your faith is something between you and God and nothing more.

This book is about people. People in relationship to God as individuals and as a community. We are connected to that state of exile, which the Israelites experienced so much. Oppression by the empire, but this time, the "Christian" nation is also the Empire. It's humbling to be apart of such wealth when so many are so without. Living the Way of Christ is about not forgetting what God has done for me and to do everything to love and help those on the lower socioeconomic level. Because God sees the suffering. He knows what happens in these human derived systems of corruption. We are made in his Image. Yet how often do we actually live like we believe this is true?

So many strands of thoughts trying to make connection. Sorry if you can't follow. Go read the book. It makes so much more sense than I do.

experiences that shape us

running
kicking and screaming
heart, broken
please don't stop the music
divorcing
selling
taking
loving
attending
dancing
singing
loving
vowing
promises promises
sunsets
toes in the sand
rain in your eyes
tumble tumble
flames
peet
persuasion
journaling
blogging
loving
poeticizing
fighting
listening
praying
staying up late
going to bed early
breaking
snacking
concert going
laying in the shade
reading
loving

Life is here. Life is now. Live. Let go. Love.

home is where'er you rest your rump

Two fabulous roommates and a spectacular house. That is the result of my trek to the Santa Clarita Valley. I also managed to forget my wallet at home. Travelling (albeit not a long distance, but still) with no money and no license makes me nervous.



Why am I so restless lately?

I planning to make a dress form soon. And I may do something radical with my appearance. Maybe it's part of this restless thing.

Stirring stirring stirring. I want to do this:



Have discovered the other Feist-y albums. Pure love.

I want to be feisty.

vicariously victorious

I think I'm doomed to live vicariously through other people's lives.

After all, I'm going into theatre. And not only that, I'm going to be dressing actors. I won't really be on the stage myself. And theatre is about thrusting yourself into a story and feeling and living a story in order to understand something new about the world. Or, in many cases, to simply affirm one's own worldview. This happens quite often in musicals.

Another example may be seen in how I spent my day today: 1.5 episodes of "Green Wing" plus a film and a movie: Rachel Getting Married and Confessions of a Shopaholic. I will probably watch more "Green Wing" later on tonight. These sorts of activities are regular occurrences in my life in Redlands.


Green Wing is a British hospital comedy television show. It's like Scrubs, but 5x as many inappropriate sexual jokes, better witty jokes, and wackier characters. And loads of angsty tension between two main characters. Oh, it's wonderful. Go watch the first season on Hulu. Second season is on MySpace.


(my mood right now can best be described as a mixture between "Mad World" and "Both Sides Now." I find this slightly depressing)

random musings

Is it weird that I miss my ringtone? The wonderful feeling of "I am loved! Someone is calling me!" And the tone reminds me of how fragile life can be and how important relationships are.

"How the story went isn't how the story has to go" how do we do that? do everything without complaining and arguing
We've lost the plot and make up excuses for why we don't want to do something. I don't like this so I'm just going to make noise with my mouth. Gonguesmas
There is always a larger story. Do not forget the larger story. Remember remember remember

trust and love and faith and glory and peace

There are many things that plague my thoughts recently.

1) I don't have enough money raised for my volunteering at Corrymeela. Which means out of pocket when I don't have any money to contribute.
2) Any leave of absence over 30 days from Barnes and Noble means termination. Which means if I want to have my job when I come back I have to reapply and they may find someone while I'm gone who they'll train and stay longer than me anyway.
3) Money for grad school. When do I not worry about that?
4) Trying to get the insurance company to approve more physical therapy sessions because I'm not getting better. And the doctor's restriction is 10 pounds and I'm still pushing around heavy carts and I was hurting pretty badly this morning after shelving.
5) They added a zoning shift for me on Monday, which means that I'm won't be in SB as long as I thought I might be able. Which is hard because it is easier to work when there is space. The computer/sewing room at home is crowded with crap and I don't have much table space to work.
6) An odd sort of conversation I had Sunday where I didn't feel like we were communicating well and therefore, unintentionally misrepresenting myself. And some things that I said that when said out loud instead of in my head did not seem to accurately represent my true thoughts and feelings.

But life is more than money and I've felt enslaved to it since survival often requires some acquisition of it.

But God says to lay my burdens at her feet. Faith like a child. And if there will be tears, then why not anoint his feet with them?

She is the God who is my Mother and my Father. She is the God that made the mind blowing expanse of the universe. Who lives outside of time and when he looks at my life, just says "yep."

pedochlophobia

I'm not sure if that is an actual word, but I'm starting it right now.

Pedophobia: fear of children
Ochlophobia: fear of large crowds

Therefore, pedochlophobia would be a fear of large crowds of children, which might be what I have been suffering from for the past year and probably still do.

It was last year that I worked at Cold Spring School day care whilst babysitting rich Montecito children wherever I could find them just to pay my rent before I went to Israel. And it was then that I began a sort of disgust for children in general. I know that sounds harsh, but if you had to deal with the crap that I dealt with from these kids...ay, Dios mio.

Recently, I've come around. This past year, I've spent plenty of time questioning whether or not I even wanted to have children if I ever got married. But now I'm thinking that I do. I know that I can't handle having any kids any time soon, because I'm not willing to make that kind of life sacrifice yet. I'm going to grad school and I'd like a few years of theatre experience under my belt before I'd make that kind of commitment to teach another human being how to live and grow. It's the teaching soul within me that wants to instill some ideology in a young brain. Just not a classroom of young brains. I'd shoot myself in the foot before I'd attempt that. And in all likelihood, any ideology I'd instill in a young brain would eventually be rejected in favor of the newer ideas that he/she discovered while in college. At least that's what happened to me, well, mostly. But this is a multi-faceted issue. There's also a fear of completely screwing up the child. There's the fear that my possible husband would screw up my child and I would be powerless to do anything about it. There's a fear of having a child who enjoys disobedience.

But a fear of large crowds of children. That is still there. I will never willingly step foot onto an elementary school campus for many many years. I like kids when there's just one or two of them because they are cute that way. But anything more than that and I want to run away. Maybe like a fear of responsibility?

In other news: Kelly Clarkson's new album is FANTASTIC. Ryan Tedder co-wrote a couple songs with her (like my favorite "Already Gone") and produced a good chunk of the album. I am in love with Ryan Tedder's music, so it makes me very very happy. Katy Perry also wrote two of the songs on the album. I'm not sure how I feel about that, but they are pretty catchy tunes, like most of her stuff.