Really Authentic

Author Anne Lamott said last week that you can’t have an authentic life if you don’t say what you see. She made the comment while answering interview questions about the subject matter of her new novel Imperfect Birds. The comment stood out to me because of the phrase “authentic life.” I’ve been hearing this word authentic over and over and it stuck out to me the way the words awkward and interesting stuck out in previous years.

When the Millionaire Matchmaker screens men and women to date her clients she looks for authenticity. On her weekly television show groups of people walk through the matchmaker’s door hoping to date one of her millionaires. She asks them one by one where they are from, what they are passionate about, and if they pay their own bills. Some people answer how they think they should answer, and others answer with authenticity. As easy as that both the matchmaker and us television viewers can see which people are putting on a show and which are being themselves. Reality TV, which isn’t reality, easily showcases the fakes. Yet reality TV also inspires imitation, and imitation leads to unauthenticity.

Unauthenticity feels empty to me. I have been unauthentic with people and the relationship didn’t last. Pastor Mark Brewer, of Bel Air Presbyterian Church where I am a member, says we need to have people in our lives who see us in every sort of circumstance. He says having those types of people in our life will keep us accountable. They will keep us authentic. I can easily be someone at work, and be someone else when I get home. I can have one group of friends for when I’m feeling fun, and another when I want to be artsy, and another for when I need to vent. I can write my Facebook statuses to frame my life in a certain way. My profile pictures can show my good hair days.

Myself and my friends, we’re called the millennials. We left our families’ homes and started using Facebook and the Internet to validate our lives in relation to the lives of our peers. We feel disappointed when no one comments on our Facebook status posts. We really do; it’s a side effect of our time and place. But as popular as we become online, we still want to be known–known not just for our marketed persona but for our authentic life. That phrase stuck out to me because there are days when I wonder what my authentic life really is. Work takes up a lot of my time, but my life is not my work. I’m involved in church, but church isn’t who I am. I know who I am in Christ, but that doesn’t satisfy me on its own. I need people around me who really know me, who I’ve let know me, to laugh with me and tell me what they really see. And I have to really see them and say something meaningful back.

A clothing store in Panama City showcases a busty mannequin.

Open Worlds

Salman Rushdie- “The art of the novel, I think, is to open worlds to you, and it seems to me we live in a time when that’s of desperate importance.”

What time is this? I live in a time when I go to workout classes full of fit, beautiful women and I look in the mirror wondering if I belong. I live in a time when it’s easy enough to just go to work, watch tv until it’s time for dinner, and then order something in. I live in a time, personally, when my life of singleness has ended and married life has barely begun. I’m re-finding out who I am and how I operate. Do I just go to work and come home too tired to think, or do I push for more? I’ve been growing bored with TV, but do appreciate its release. I live in a time when I read a few chapters of the New Testament each night because it changes my life. It is the opposite of the way women treat each other on the Real Housewives of New York City and other reality TV shows. It is the opposite of how I feel at workout class with all of those lovely women. This is my world. Writing a novel, I think, would be worth the discovery.

A note about the year and a half I’ve spent away from this blog: This blog started as a tool for a discipleship group I was teaching, as well as a venue for me to work out my thoughts. The discipleship group ended, I got engaged, I planned a wedding while working full-time as a magazine editor, and I didn’t have time for this blog. I also took what I said in the “Summer” entry seriously. It is risky to put myself out there online, in front of readers I don’t know. Getting engaged and preparing for the massive life change of being married sent my soul searching. For a rare season in my life I was so caught up in the action of the day to day that I couldn’t process completely all that I was going through. But here I am, again. Married, now, nine months and yet still the same girl. I’m still thinking, out loud. I’m reading the Bible and letting it affect who I become.

I’ve also just finished our wedding album, finally. Check it out! If you have an idea for a Blurb album, but don’t trust yourself to put it together, I’ll help! I’ve been making books for friends and family as long as I can remember. And now I’m a magazine editor. This is my thing. I’d love to take on your project.

Photo by Bonnie Tsang

Summer

I’ve been thinking and praying about what to do with this blog and at this point I know that God wants me to write more. Of course that makes me scared because I want to write, but if I write I want my writing to be worthwhile. I admire writers like Anne Lamott and most recently Katherine’s mom, Kim. I admire their writing because it’s honest, it’s soulful, and it addresses many of the complexities in life that I think about too.

Now Anne Lamott has been blogging, in a sense, since her first non-fiction book Operating Instructions was published in 1993. And by the time her fifth memoir came out in 2007 I felt like I was reading the journal of a dear friend. It’s 2008 and I’m getting my Lamott-type fixes lately from Kim, who doesn’t have a publisher or an agent, but an account with Blogspot and a daughter in the hospital. Kim’s daughter Katherine is amazing. She’s one of the few people I’ve met who can talk confidently about her faith with strangers. You don’t forget Katherine. She glows. She’s dynamic and welcoming and you won’t feel like stranger for long. And now, following Katherine’s stroke and hospitalization in April, I’m getting to know Kim, who raised up Godly Katherine but relates to God more the way I relate to God.

Kim, and I, and Anne Lamott, love God. But it’s hard for us to hear that God loves us. We know down in the foundation of who we are that God loves us. But day to day we can all relate that, as Kim puts it, “My head knowledge and my emotions are often at war with each other. My life is full of inconsistencies, if not outright hypocrisies.” One of our inconsistencies is that even though we know God loves us unconditionally, we can’t always feel his love. We often don’t feel good enough. We try to earn his love. We beg for forgiveness, although it’s already been given to us. Day after day, hour by hour, we must hear it again, Jesus loves me, and many times hearing those three words doesn’t feel like we think it should. Jesus loves us. Jesus loves us. It helps me to write that again.

Forgive me for making these observations about women I’ve never met. I’m even likening these great women to myself. How pretentious. But for one reason or another Anne and Kim have opened up their inner lives through books and blogs and pieces of their writing have spoken to me. Anne is a celebrity of sorts, so it doesn’t feel as awkward writing about her. Kim, however, is a friend of a friend and I am more hesitant to write about her and her family here.

Blogging is new and I think we’re all still figuring out the boundaries. I’m very hesitant to write about certain subjects here. Those warning signs from human resources departments and Dateline television specials ring in my ears. I feel a little naked. But I’m willing to start writing, thinking so publicly out loud, because I’ve found a few blogs that really mean something to me. I believe in writing and reading and the public conversation. Blogging is influencing my public conversations and trains of thought. And, for now, I know that God wants me to write more. For now, this will be the place.

It is summer and there’s not a whole lot of structure here. The header photo of the chair in the tall grass was taken outside Savannah, Georgia, during a lightening storm. My favorite moment from summer so far was running around on the lawn in front of that chair, soaking wet from the rain, and doing cartwheels with my best friend. I also feel oh so free at the beach when I’m running around on the sand, like the woman in the photograph below.

If you’ve read this blog before, I’m still reading through the bible this year, but will write less about that. From time to time I’ll let you know what I’m reading. If you’d like to read the bible a year too, the schedule is posted here. Tonight I’m reading Proverbs 14-17, and my two of my favorite blogs, Kim’s and Annie’s (different Annie).

freedom

Break

I’ve been writing in my journal this month. I’m praying about what to make of this site. More to come in July…

Look Up

Psalms 7-12 (the Message)

Who is God? He gets us ready for life. He probes our soft spots and knock off our rough edges. He does things right. Brilliant. He made the heavens and the earth, and he always knows what is going on with us. He is in charge, as he always was and is. He tests the good and the bad. His anger is real.

What does this mean for me? Thank God and sing his praises. Enjoy him. Tell his stories to everyone you meet. Open your heart to the Lord.

Unbreak my heart. Restore me so that I can love again Lord. Remind me, Lord, that I was first loved by you and that that can never be taken away.

Week 23

Reading Schedule: Week 23

6/1 Psalms 1-6

6/2 Psalms 7-12

6/3 Psalms 13-18

6/4 Psalms 19-24

6/5 Psalms 25-30

6/6 Psalms 31-36

6/7-8 Psalms 37-41

Weeks 21 & 22

Reading Schedule Week 21

5/19 Job 8-10

5/20 Job 11-14

5/21 Job 15-17

5/22 Job 18-19

5/23 Job 20-21

5/24-25 Job 22-24

Reading Schedule: Week 22

5/26 Job 25-28

5/27 Job 29-31

5/28 Job 32-34

5/29 Job 35-37

5/30 Job 38-39

5/31 Job 40-42

Fight Back

Esther 8-10

Who is God? He is faithful to his people. He saves them from slaughter. He turned a scary, hopeless situation to good, “And many of the people of the land became Jews themselves, for they feared what the Jews might do to them.” He increased his kingdom. He gave the Jews the power to overpower their enemies. These were people who were previoulsy waiting to be slaughtered.

What does that mean for me? Fight for the things you believe in and fight for your brothers and sisters in Christ. After Esther had saved Mordecai’s life she went back. She went back to the king to fight for the lives of her people. Fight back. This world is out to slaughter us. It wants to destroy us. Without God’s grace and faith in Jesus the only choice we have is death. Fight back. For God empowers and he has plans for all of us. Draw near to him. Sit with him. Be filled with him. Allow him to change you. Allow him to save your life.

Other ideas on my mind:

Sin is: Whatever weakens your reason, impairs the tenderness of your conscious, obscures your sense of God, or takes off the relish for spiritual things, then it is sin for you, however innocent it may be in itself.

The children of God have always struggled with this… finding their identity in Christ. It is an identity worth fighting for.

How we view ourselves affects how we act.

Who are you? Do you know who you are in Christ? Are you willing to act differently because your identity is founded in him?

Week 20

Reading Schedule: Week 20

5/12 Esther 1-2

5/13 Esther 3-4

5/14 Esther 5-7

5/15 Esther 8-10

5/16 Job 1-3

5/17-5/18 Job 4-7

Get it Right

Nehemiah 11-13

Who is God? He gives the people cause for great joy, 12:43. He can turn curses into blessings. His love endures forever.

What does this mean for me? Give thanks to the Lord, celebrate his glory and provision. A relationship with the Lord does require sacrifice. Give generously. Give him your very best. Keep your community accountable, but remember Jesus words, “And why worry about a speck in your friend’s eye when you have a log in your own?” (Mat 7:3)

I like Nehemiah, for he has a such a go get ‘em urge to serve the Lord. He wants to get it right. And it seems, back then, so necessary to get it right. Not by grace, but by strict adherence to the law did God look favorably on you and your family. Nehemiah’s reprimanding seems quite harsh to me in my “anything goes, be yourself” daily life. The God that sits with me each day, that knows the deepest motivations of my heart, that doesn’t require me to sacrifice animals nor build him a great temple keeps coming back. I still try to get it right more than I do get it right and he comes back. And if Nehemiah showed up on my shoulder wearing a pair of white wings he’d reprimand quite a bit. But Lord, you know what I need to hear and you find a way to share the truth with me. Keep me honest and tuned in, Lord. I want to meet you in heaven so that I can understand both your reprimanding and graceful sides Lord. As pastor Brewer said in church today, your discipline and your nurturing sides Lord.