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I'm now 23 years and 2 days old.

I've been told that this is a great year and that 23 is a wonderful, fun age to be. I don't know much about being 23, so I asked why:

"Because it's a year that will have a lot of change for you."

Well, I'm typically not a big fan of a lot of change. But, I've been told that it's good, so I'm just going to gear up, take a deep breath, put a smile on my face, and say, "bring it."

Thoughts during a much needed break (last night)

Here's a mental ramble for you:

So, I've been reading scripts from about 3pm-9:30pm today. (That's a complete guess - I was looking at pages, not the clock.) And during my entire time doing so I've been listening to the Christmas Music station I created on Pandora. That's a lot of Christmas music. (But it's provided a better background sound than my neighbors' driving bass line to the hip-hop that they were listening to.)

At any rate, this song just came up:
"Hark the Herold Angels Sing" by the Prague Philharmonic Orchestra on their album entitled, "Christmas Choral Classics."

My first thought when I finally noticed hearing it was to skip the song. It's not quite "my style." I love classical music but this is/was a bit - how shall I say it - "heavy" for me.

And yet, as I held my finger poised, lightly scratching the button to skip the song, I made a little mental connection:

A friend of mine and I were talking last night about how this holiday season is a time of Spiritual Warfare. I mean, real spiritual War. The evil one knew that his defeat was imminent. The first Christmas wasn't nice, it wasn't gift wrapped, and somehow I kind of doubt that it was "peaceful" or "quiet" in the sense that we think about. This was no Hallmark image.

Evil raged against Good. Choirs and armies of angels filled the sky. Their appearance was glorious and terrifying.

Bring it back to this song, sung in this manner, by this choir, in this orchestra... "Heavy."



"'Hark!' The Herold Angels sing, 'Glory to the newborn king!'"



The style carries strength. And that's something to consider. The divine combination of absolute strength with absolute vulnerability.
It's beautiful.


It's Christmas.

Thankful

Okay, this is about two weeks belated, but I just wanted to run a quick recap on my Thanksgiving:

The Day of:
~ woke up at 4AM
~ drove to Modesto with my mom - girls' roadie! (drive time = 6hours)
~ sorted and hulled pecans while waiting for Thanksgiving lunch/dinner to be ready
~ recruited cousin to join in the work/fun
~ ate a lot of good food. had a lot of good conversation.
~ observed family
~ went on a walk down the canal for about 4 miles with Grandma and Cousin Christie
~ came back and ate pie
~ finished hulling pecans (helped out Uncle Nick a LOT by getting this chore done for him)
~ recruited cousin and aunts to help out this time
~ listened to Uncle Nick play flamenco guitar while we hulled
~ admired the newest member of "The Miller Clan" little Joshua Crooker
~ spent time with family

The Day after:
~ woke up at 4:25AM to go on a Black Friday Adventure with my Cousin Christie
~ went to Walmart and bought myself a camera - got lost getting there
~ went back to my aunt's house and went back to sleep - got lost getting back
~ woke up and spent more time with family
~ explored new camera
~ went on another walk down the canal with Mom
~ drove back home with Mom - picked persimmons before we left and also got a bag of pecans to shell

And there's a whole lotta love.

*Photos edited by Matt Vargo

Fall Retreat (revisited)

Jill let me grab her nifty camera and take a shot of this amazing tree up at Ponderosa Pines.
Here's the caption she wrote when she posted it for me on facebook:

"Becca thought this tree was spectacular, so she took a picture."



How true.

Today I...

~ Woke up early...6:30AM
~ Carpooled with those involved with the "Life Without Parole" production up to the Women's Prison in Chino
~ Made it there in about 30 minutes after getting Starbucks
~ Got cleared for security
~ Performed the thus said play for around 400 inmates
~ Cried a lot
~ Had a Q&A/response time with the inmates, several of whom were domestic violence survivors and had their stories directly represented in the dialogue of the play
~ Cried even more.
~ Left the prison and got lunch...starting the road home around 1:30pm.
~ Found out that my hometown is on fire. Thank God, my parents are safe right now
~ Made it back to Vanguard around 6:30pm (yes, that's a 5 hour drive).

~ am completely exhausted.

Yeah, clearly it's been one of those boring, typical days in my life...

And so she dances...

"Common sense" tells me to give up. But I have this really stupid annoying thing called a heart and it keeps getting in the way and disrupting my decision making process.

Quite clearly, I have commitments and obligations and those must be honored and kept. Yes, agreed. And to take on those dreams (however so small and insignificant to others) is making my life so much more complicated, stressful, and difficult than I should like it to be. The rational, obvious choice then is to let those dreams go and follow the path that I have set out for me now. I should sit this one out and hope for the ability to dance with my dreams in the future...the far off, unknown "someday."

But if we did not dare to follow our dreams, so many of the wonderful adventures, inventions, and some of the best moments in history would not have come to fruition.

I have the charge set before me that I was not born to play it safe, no matter how much I'd like to do so.
And so, I choose to risk. I am not content to give up so easily...I will fight and try until I have exhausted every resource and the answer is a resounding, "no."

I fall down again and again in the hopes that one day, I will finally learn how to fly. And then...oh my, how I shall soar...

Superchic[k] put it this way, "To fall is not to fail, you fail when you don't try."

Something of Substance...

On Thursday we drove down to Cal State San Marcos to perform "Life Without Parole." That's right - we are officially and technically on tour now. Neat.

Anyway, I grabbed a Snickers bar for our drive down and noticed a nifty little word and definition in the wrapper:


Substantialiscious \sub-'stan(t)-shu-'ll-shus\
(noun). The weight of something when you weigh it with your tongue.


Alright, aside from the misclassification of the word (it has been brought to my attention lately that the word should be an adjective, not a noun - true), I have a question (or a few) mulling around in my mind.

Who is weighing things with their tongues!?
Going off of that - what, exactly, are they weighing? Why are they weighing things with their tongues? (How did they get the idea to weigh things with their tongues in the first place?) And how are they doing it? (My imagination is running free and wild by this point.)

Of course, all answers I might come up with are only silly conjecture because "substantialiscious" isn't really a word. But at least I can point to a candy bar for something tasty to munch on and for a few moments (okay, maybe more than a few) of entertained musings.

Flowers, Love, and Tangeaunts

I'm currently at my dad's house visiting for the weekend. Festivities are to include a trip to the pumpkin patch at Bates Nut Farm and making pumpkin soup from scratch - both are traditions for me. At any rate, "my room" has been converted into a sort of guest room and it's been interesting looking at the additions to the decor. One such item that has caught my eye is a picture of my half-sister with my step-aunt in a frame that reads, "Aunts are like flowers...they brighten up your day."

Alright. I think it's kinda cute - but mostly super cheesy. And I've been thinking of my own:
"Aunts are like flowers...they all smell good." Ooh - awkward, and not always true. Heh.
"Aunts are like flowers...some are just more colorful than others." hehehehehe
"Aunts are like flowers...the real ones are better than the fake."

(I came up with others, but they were a little strange or didn't necessarily make sense - basically, I don't want to share them.)

The last one got me thinking though...
I remember once reading a bumper sticker thing that read, "He sent her a dozen roses and within them was one fake rose. Attached was a note saying 'I'll love you until the last flower dies.'"
Alright, so my initial response is, "Awww - sweet!" *Gag*

I feel torn because while one side of me thinks about how such a description of love is immature...maybe there's more the idea than initially meets the eye. I have to admit, that there is a certain draw for me in the idea.

In this cynical world and our jaded society, it's difficult to imagine any sort of "love" actually lasting. Fairy tale love doesn't exist...and yet, we wish so much that it did.

How nice to realize that it actually does.

The problem concerning the love story surrounding the roses is that not only is it based in fantasy, it is also an act generally made prematurely. It's something that high school kids do for one another, or sweethearts who haven't been dating for long enough. It goes right along with the version of love sold to us by Hollywood - love isn't about sacrifice, making active decisions that put another person's best interest before our own, or choosing to act in love even when what we feel most like doing is turning around and walking the other way! No, love is about flowers, and hearts, and kissing, and doing what feels good.

Personally, I think the story is more fitting for the couple who's been married 20 years, just had a huge fight, and has their marriage on the rocks. He buys her a bouquet and pledges to remain with her - a renewal of vows.
Not a hormonally scripted line that will ensure a score with the immature teenagers.

But I digress...
The point is that at the root of such a desire for romance is the truth that such love actually does exist. We are wired to respond to the idea of an eternally lasting love. We know that it's real - we just have a hard time discovering where it is or how to go about finding it. How funny that there is a huge book describing this very love that we all seek after - and yet we still miss it. Sometimes (more often than not), I miss it. I'm only human after all.

So, where or what is the source of this mysteriously obvious love?
Well - God of course. How wonderful that a God who claims to be eternal also claims to be love incarnate.

What it comes down to then, is that the God who made the flowers and the pumpkins of the field also created a love so holy and sweet that we would all recognize the desire in our souls for it.

Sittin' for a spell with God

So, I saw opening night of "Godspell" a couple weeks ago. It's funny how the little things - seemingly normal, simple things - can prepare you for huge things. A musical isn't a big deal. But the thoughts inspired by it can be.

To provide a tiny bit of background: "Godspell" is based off of the book of Mark from the Bible. The first Act of the show is made up of Jesus running around telling parables, and the second Act picks up with the reactions from the religious leaders of the time...leading up to His crucifixion and resurrection. Okay, good - now we're on the same page.

Two songs made a lasting impression on me - not because of musical quality (because I could tell you about those, but it'd be a different conversation) but because of the life impact I ran into with them later.

The first was "All for the Best." Jesus and His disciple make jokes and remind audience members that when they run into trouble in life, that it's "all for best" and that God has a plan. The production of the song was actually a corny sort of humor that produced smiles and chuckles. Not so funny was finding out right after the show that a friend of mine had to fly home because her step-dad had been killed in a freak accident at work.
Wow. In the face of "Why is she having to go through that, God? It's not fair," I'm met with the echos of humor and lyrics that sing of God having a plan..."it's all for the best."

And really - it's true. If I'm going to trust in this God, I have to believe in the assertions that He makes about Himself. One of them being that He cares about us and has our best interest at heart. Sometimes we just lose track of the timing of that interest...it's in an eternal perspective - not temporal.

So bring on the second song - "Oh God, I'm dying." Jesus is on the cross singing, "Oh, God - I'm bleeding...Oh, God, I'm dying..." and then the ensemble responds with, "Oh, God - you're dying." Okay, so aside from some incredibly interesting thoughts that this song inspires about God and His very being...it also elicited a personal connection within me.

I was reminded of how on the cross, Christ cried out, "My God, my God - why have You forsaken me?" And that got me thinking...
Jesus had the best Dad ever. I mean - absolutely perfect. Perfect love, always there for Jesus...none of this manipulative, failure stuff that we have to deal with regarding our fathers on earth.
So, how much more would the rejection of an absolutely perfect Father hurt? I've veen thinking about the rejection I've gotten in life from my own dad (whatever the cause). I think that the rejection Christ experienced must hurt even more. God actively turned His back on Jesus as he hung on the cross - experiencing punishment for things that he didn't even do. In the worst moment of his life, Christ had the pain mulplied by the rejection of God when he needed Him most.

And that brings me back to the relational pain I experience. It makes me realize more that God really DOES understand what I'm going through. So I can be comforted by the fact that He cries with me when I cry. His heart breaks for me and with me when I am shattered.

I understand Christ more - how wonderful that God brings me to a place where He allows me to relate to Him.

Sound the alarm! (it's time to wake up)

A few weeks ago, I experienced trouble getting a full night's sleep. It wasn't that I was having trouble getting to sleep at night, or even that I was waking up in the middle of the night (although that was sometimes the case - adjusting to dorm life can be difficult at first). Really, the problem was that for several days in a row, I kept waking up incredibly early - hours before my alarm was set to wake me up (at either 7AM or 8:30AM).

I'd wake up in a panic that the sun had risen and my alarm hadn't woken me up. Maybe I had overslept! Maybe I had slept through my alarm (unlikely because I'm a relatively light sleeper). Maybe I had forgotten to set my alarm to the correct time the night before (unlikely because I double or triple checked the time setting the night before).

So, after squinting at the clock and discovering that I had around a good two hours before I needed to wake up, I'd roll back over only to reawaken a short time later in the same worried state - over, and over, and over again.

One might wonder why. I'll be the first to admit that stressors and anxieties in my life were obviously taking a toll and making themselves known through my sleep patterns. However, I can't shake the parallels between my spiritual life and my lack of trust in my alarm clock.

So many times, I fail to trust in God, His provision, and His timing. I know that He is faithful, constant, and true...but when the anxieties and worries of life come and hit me, I almost immediately fall into a flurry of doubt, fear, and worry. Where is the trust?

In a small similar way, I refused to trust my alarm to wake me up in the morning. And really - it's ridiculous. I set my alarm, and then checked it at least twice. The machine won't fail...I've checked for human error...clearly we have a problem if I'm still not relying on my alarm to sound and wake me up in the morning.

And in comparison, how much more ridiculous is my lack of faith and trust in the great One who blessed people with the intelligence to design and create such a thing as an alarm?

I could further draw out an idea using the alarm clock metaphor and talk about God's timing, but I think that the real issue of my heart that I want to focus on right now is my own stupid failure to trust the only one who can ever be fully and continually relied upon.

...interesting how my own fears, failings, and anxieties bring to light both the issues of my heart and the concepts of God's greatness. The wonderful part is that even though I am fickle, distrusting, and fearful, God never gets impatient with me and only continues to prove how worthy He is of my complete trust placed in Him.

And my alarm still wakes me up in the morning.

bed-making and Jesus

I've started making my bed in the morning.

This is different from my usual mode of operation because I typically just roll out of bed in the morning and "go". "Make my bed? Why? I've got a world to go take on, and I'll just fall into it at night only to leave it in the same state the next morning."
Of course, when I'm at home I make my bed. There is no other option.

So that's why when I leave home, I absolutely refuse to make it...
until recently.

I am now making it because I want to. Nobody asks me to. Nobody tells me to. Nobody criticizes me if it isn't made quickly enough. Simply - the girls I am rooming with make their own bed and leave me to do what I will.

And therein lies the difference. There is no judgment on me for my decisions. I am accepted.
So I make my bed because I want to. I make my bed because when it's left unkempt the room looks sloppy. I make my bed because I notice that the room looks better - prettier - and I want to do what I can to make those around me happy. I curtail my own freedom of choice in deciding whether or not to make my bed for the benefit of those around me. That's what love is, right?

It's putting aside your own self-interests for the bettering of another person.

...which brings me back to Christ - the whole "we love Him because He first loved us" bit.

Jesus didn't come to earth and say, "Hey you lousy slob - you need me. Honor me. Love me." Yes, I am in desperate need of Christ's work in my life. Yes, I am wired to honor Him, to love Him. But I didn't realize that until I understood the concept of the cross. I love Christ because He first loved me - no strings attached - in a fashion defining the term, "come as you are." I honor Christ because I have a tiny understanding of the sacrifice He made for me.

The desire to reciprocate is a natural response to the abundant, lavish outpouring of love.

And that's what I think about when I think about making my bed.

This is for JesusBranded clothing

I was prompted about why I support JesusBranded clothing.

The reason is fairly simple and straight forward: I love their creative designs. I love that their shirts are artistic. Many clothing companies produce shirts with hokey "Christianese" sayings that seem to diminish the value and serious beauty of Christ's coming to earth.

JesusBranded produces clothing that is artistic and trendy but carries a message that is timeless and lasting. The brand makes clothing that helps provide words for Christians as they provide testimony to the world through their actions.

I love that JesusBranded clothing combines the absolute beauty of the Cross with visual beauty to be worn on the body.

Check 'em out: http://www.JesusBranded.com

I can ride a bike with no handle bars, no handlebars, no handlebars

not really. (Pretend I posted this on Saturday.)

but the point is that i rode a bike today. for over 7miles. up and down hills. and i hadn't seriously ridden a bike before today in...around 7 years, i think.
i wore my helmet. no shame.

yeah, my body kind of already hates me.
the sense of "euphoria" that Aaron Delani spoke of, is pretty much making up for it though.

and then i went swing dancing at downtown disney because they had a band called Rumble King playing there out on the walk. so i got to go dance for free! well, there was a cost - i kind of ruined my shoes. i completely rubbed off the felt on the balls of my feet. bummer.

but it was still sweet fun.

(I figured that since I got a blogspot for the very purpose of keeping up with AaronAndLesTourTheUS in the first place, that this would be appropriate as my very first post.)