Film removal.

I stumbled upon a perspective-altering realization last night.

That seems to be happening on a regular basis lately.

But this last one was particularly stealthy and hard to ignore.

I realized that for a long time now I've been wishing I could have my life back. That necessarily implies that I had concluded that my life was gone. I also realized that I had not only concluded my life was gone, but that it had been taken from me, forcefully.

I determined a while ago that I've been going through a "my life is not my own" lesson, a lesson which aligns with feelings that acquaintance with my life has been severed. However, one of the biggest points I've found in this particular lesson is that what God has been doing with my life, whether or not I like it, has been a direct result of a commitment I made to Christ. I gave my life over willingly.

So nothing was taken from me.

But I've been sitting here under the delusion that it has and have been feeling resentful because of it. I've been waiting around for the day when my life will come back to me. When who or whatever took it away will decide that they're done with it and I can once again make its possession mine.

Whoa.

My life hasn't been taken. Furthermore, this is my life; everything that's been happening, everything that has made me feel turned upside down, everything that seems so uncertain, it's all my life. I need to embrace it and disallow myself to be deluded that some other kind of life that I've dreamed up in my head is a reality above what I have now.

Allow me now to quote one of my favorite songs from Derek Webb, one that I sing often: "I am wrong and of these things I repent."

The world has found somebody to love. I knew this would happen.

And it's about time.

Usually, when everybody's talking about something, I'm not. Sometimes - oftentimes - I don't even know about it.

But when someone I know is at the center of all the chatter, I'm more than happy, eager even, to make an exception.

I'm surprised it's taken me so long to post about this, actually.

Marc Martel, guitarist and co-lead singer for the band downhere, submitted an audition video  on Tuesday for a Queen tribute band, set to be called Queen Extravaganza. The contest and eventual tour is the brain child of Queen's drummer Roger Taylor, and while he'll have the final say on who all will be in the band, he launched this search to allow the public to vote on who they want one member of the band to be.

For years, Marc has had dozens of people come up to him after every concert he plays and ask him something along the lines of, "Has anyone ever told you that you sound like that guy from Queen?" So it was almost a no-brainer for him to submit his own audition. Out of the four songs hopefuls had to choose from, Marc picked "Somebody to Love."

If you haven't seen it, watch the video. Even if you have, watch it again. This is 2 minutes and 11 seconds of your life that you will not regret devoting to a blending of audio and visuals.



Impressive? I know the guy and I'm impressed. I even know he could have done better than this and I'm still impressed.

Apparently a lot of other people are too, because the video has over 2 million views as of the time I'm writing this and he's been popping up all over the Internet, television and radio. Wow.

I've known the band downhere for about three years (and been listening to them for about nine). They're not only four of my favorite musicians, but also people I genuinely like to be around. To say I'm proud of Marc is an understatement.

Voting begins November 11th. If things have already been taking off this quickly, I'm excited to see what happens between now and then!

Welcome to my library.

Do you like it?

I've been wanting to revamp the looks of my blog for a long time. For one reason or another I didn't do it. Until tonight.

It's not much but I think it makes a big difference.

I hope it does, anyway.

Again, I ask, do you like it?

What came of packing.

I have a proposition. How about we leave the typical psychological/theological/spiritual/deep reasoning tone that pervades everything I write and talk about something less taxing on the brain? Like fashion.

Seriously.

I've spent much of today both taking a walk down fashion memory lane and shopping in my closet, so such matters have been on my mind.

The stroll down the road of the past was triggered by a cleaning out of my decade-old bag of nail polish. (By the way, if you're wondering whether nail polish really does go bad, give it 8-10 years and it will.) Most people who have only known me since my late teens don't know that I was formerly an obsessive nail painter in my adolescent-mid teen years. My toes nails, that is. They were always painted. And I didn't let the paint chip. I kept them up regularly and changed the color often.

Until the one time that I did let the pain chip and wear. Then it was that I realized my heart was no longer in it. So I stopped all together. Thus my vast nail polish collection sat in its cute pink bag, where it was allowed years to separate and coagulate into pigmented chunks.

Something else that could be said of me in former times is that I was an obsessive and compulsive matcher. That is one of the primary reasons my nail color changed so often: it had to match my clothes. My shoes had to match my clothes. My hair accessories had to match my clothes. My bracelets and necklaces had to match my clothes. Most importantly, my clothes had to match. There was very little color-blending on my person. I was often a monochromatic wonder.

But could you blame me when a sea of one color, even one color in varying shades, brought a calmness over me that few other sights did? That's why I did it. A clash of color brought about turmoil in my senses and I tried to avoid inspiring turmoil with my ensembles by consciously trying to promote peace with them. (Okay, so I couldn't stay away from psychoanalysis altogether. I suppose that's what happens when one gets a degree in thinking. Or maybe I got a degree in thinking precisely because I can't squelch it. Moving on....)

That's only the tip of the iceberg of my obsessive/compulsive tendencies. Internally high-strung and uptight was I. In more recent years, I've become much more laid back. Sloppy even, in certain areas. And when it comes to choosing clothes to wear, I am sometimes downright cavalier with the colors I wear side-by-side. (By the way, a wash of monochromaticism still inspires calm within me. I'm just not as dependent on that calm as I once was. I've actually become somewhat of a chaos-seeker. But that's another conversation entirely.)

This matching vs. non-matching was brought to my attention as I was closet shopping. I'm preparing for a trip and browsing through my closet is something I always end up doing in the process. I usually feel compelled to not wear the same thing too often. Packing for a trip is a prime occasion to plan my outfits ahead of time and see if I can't come up with something I haven't worn before.

In case you're wondering, I was successful in my endeavors this time. I came out with the following color combos: brown, black, red and yellow; blue, pink and grey; blue, purple and yellow. This was one of my more cavalier days.

I also noticed and began to ponder other recent trends in my dress:

• Skirts pop up more often than they did in the past. I quite like to wear them now. When they're the right kind. They inspire a feeling of fun, and as I'm not the kind of person to care above an ounce about either keeping my clothes clean and orderly or appearing ladylike, wearing skirts does not hinder me from being my same sloppy self. Now I just look cuter when I'm doing it. That's what I tell myself.
• I'm a layer queen. Nothing I packed for this weekend is devoid of layers. I have shirts to wear on top of shirts. In the winter, I rarely make a public appearance without tights or leggings underneath my shorts/skirts/dresses. They serve the dual purpose of making my clothes look more interesting and covering my legs so that I don't have to wear pants. I typically consider that to be an accomplishment.
• I've lately been into belts. What inspired me was this really awesome orange one I inherited for free from I can't remember where that's woven out of thick yarn, is tassel-like on the end and looks like something awesome from the '70s. I told myself I had to wear it based on that merit alone. Then my attention was drawn to other belts in my possession that were being neglected. Upon adorning myself with them, I found I liked them.

Something that hasn't changed in a great many years is my distaste for wearing shoes. That's a trend that still continues. If anything, it's intensified. I only wear them because there's a social obligation. Even then, they fall off whenever I think I can get away with it. Along with my relinquishing of matching, this growing dislike of shoes has relieved the pressure of them having to match. I don't wear them enough to worry much about how they fit my ensemble.

Lest you get the wrong impression, I also feel like I should throw in here that it doesn't take me long to get dressed. My swiftness often propels my bold color mixing, because I don't take much time to think it over. I also don't wear anything fancy. Like I said, I'm sloppy and unladylike. Fancy and I aren't friends. At best we're occasional, cordial acquaintances. I also no longer accessorize to the hilt. The most I do is pull up my hair. But I don't even do that often, choosing rather to let it air dry and look like a long mess.

Now it's your turn, friends. What do you like to wear? Something that I don't? Like socks? Or pants? Maybe you like hats? I've been intrigued by hats, but can't decide if they're too much trouble or not....

The book that compelled me to stop everything and write.

I've started reading a remarkable book today. It's called Rees Howells: Intercessor and is written by Norman Grubb. The book is a biography about Rees Howells, a man from Wales who was born in the late 19th Century.

I glanced at a review of the book that Google pulled up and the reviewer described the book as "a mess-up-your-life kind of book." I've only read five chapters and I am beginning to see why she said that.

I just finished chapter five and was so compelled to stop and write about it that here I am now. I never do that with books. I always read them completely before feeling released to make more than small comments about them. This is certainly a unique situation.

I'm going to first quote and summarize what I feel are the pertinent parts in this chapter, then I will give my own commentary. In this passage, Howells is talking about and to the Holy Spirit (all bolded phrases are ones I wish to emphasize):

"'He made it very plain that He would never share my life. I saw the honour He gave me in offering to indwell me, but there were many things very dear to me, and I knew He wouldn't keep one of them. The change He would make was very clear. It meant every bit of my fallen nature was to go to the Cross, and He would bring in His own life and His own nature.'

It was unconditional surrender. From the meeting Rees went out into a field, where he cried his heart out, because, as he said, 'I had received a sentence of death.... I had lived in my body for twenty-six years, and could I easily give it up?...Why does a man struggle when death comes, if it is easy to die? I knew that the only place fit for the old nature was on the cross.... But once this is done in reality, it really is done for ever. I could not run int0 this. I intended to do it, but oh, the cost! I wept for days. I lost seven pounds in weight, just because I saw what He was offering me. How I wished I had never seen it! One thing He reminded me of was that He had only come to take what I had already promised the Saviour, not in part, but the whole. Since He died for me, I had died in Him, and I knew that the new life was His and not mine. That had been clear in my mind for three years....and I saw that only the Holy Ghost in me could live like the Saviour. Everything He told me appealed to me; it was a only a question of the loss there would be in doing it. I didn't give my answer in a moment, and He didn't want me to.'

It took five days to make the decision....

'Nothing is more real to me than the process I went through for that whole week.... The Holy Spirit went on dealing with me, exposing the root of my nature which was self.... Sin was cancelled, and it wasn't sin He was dealing with; it was self - that thing which came from the Fall. He was not going to take any superficial surrender. He put His finger on each part of my self-life, and I had to decide in cold blood. He could never take a thing away until I gave my consent. Then the moment I gave it, some purging took place, and I could never touch that thing again. It was not saying I was purged and the thing still having a hold on me: no, it was a breaking, and the Holy Ghost taking control. Day by day the dealing went on. He was coming in as God, and I had lived as a man, and "what is permissible to an ordinary man," He told me, "will not be permissible to you."'"

He then goes on to list the specific desires of his nature that the Holy Spirit started coming in to replace. First was "the love of money." Next was a desire to make a self-absorbed life. The Holy Spirit would always be reaching out to the world, so Rees would have to as well. Next was ambition. All desires to make something of himself, particularly above another, were not congruent with the life of the Spirit. On the last day of this process, the fifth day, it says that "his reputation was touched." "As the Saviour was despised, he must be willing to be the same."

"By Friday night each point had been faced. He knew exactly what he was offered, the choice between temporal and eternal gain. The Spirit summed the issue up for him: 'On no account will I allow you to cherish a single thought of self, and the life I will live in you will be one hundred per cent for others. You will never be able to save yourself, and more than the Saviour could when He was on earth. Now, are you willing?' He was to give a final answer.

...'I have been dealing with you for five days: you must give Me your decision by six o'clock to-night, and remember, your will must go.' ...It was the final battle on the will.

'I asked Him for more time,' Rees continued, 'but He said, "You will not have a minute after six o'clock." When I heard that it was exactly as if a wild beast was roused in me. "You gave me a free will," I answered, "and now You force me to give it up." "I do not force you," He replied, "but for three years have you not been saying that you are not your own, and that you wanted to give your life back to the Saviour as completely as He gave His life for you?" I climbed down in a second.... "I am sorry," I told Him, "I didn't mean what I said." "You are not forced to give up your will," He said again, "but at six o'clock I will take your decision. After that you will never get another chance." It was my last offer, my last chance!'...

'Once more the question came, "Are you willing?" It was ten minutes to six. I wanted to do it, but I could not. Your mind is keen when you are tested, and in a flash it came to me, "How can self be willing to give up self?" Five to six came. I was afraid of those last five minutes. I could count the ticks of the clock. Then the Spirit spoke again. "If you can't be willing, would you like Me to help you? Are you willing to be made willing?" "Take care," the enemy whispered. "When a stronger person than yourself is on the other side, to be willing to be made willing, is just the same as to be willing." ...It was one minute to six. I bowed my head and said, "Lord, I am willing."'

...'Immediately,' said Rees, 'I was transported into another realm, within that sacred veil, where the Father, the Saviour and the Holy Ghost live. There I heard God speaking to me, and I have lived there ever since. When the Holy Ghost enters, He comes in to "abide for ever." To the Blood be the glory!

'How I adored the grace of God! It is God who goes so far as to give us repentance. It was God who helped me to give up my will. There were some things He had asked for during the week that I was able to give, because I was the master of them, but when He asked me to give up my self and my will, I found I could not - until he pulled me through.'"

Whoa.

Before reading this, I don't think I had ever read or heard someone describe an experience such as this. What about it that impacts me so is not just how profound it is, but the fact that I have felt a similar thing happening in my life (!), only not nearly as dramatic nor as fast. Yet I have felt in many ways like I was a lone island in my experience. I have come to learn that no one is ever a lone island in anything, but as I hadn't encountered a story like this I was still searching for one that could confirm my non-solitary state. I seem to have found it.

I have mentioned in recent posts how I have felt like the theme of my life recently has been "you have no control over your life." Rees's experience here was certainly a confrontation with that, and for whatever reason that God ordained, it was very abrupt and final. While similar, my experience has been slightly different. There has been no five days holed up with God in heightened anguish. There has been little dramatic dialogue. No strict time limits. Nor do I feel as if my life has been devoid of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit before this point.

What I do feel like has been happening is that the Holy Spirit has been reminding me of the commitment I made. "Have you not been saying that you are not your own?," he asks. Yes. I have. Every time I've said it has been sincere, albeit I didn't know to what extent my sincerity would carry me. But God gives grace. And every time I have been challenged recently the Holy Spirit has brought that commitment to my mind. And just like Rees described my will is never taken from me, but whenever I remember that commitment, I relinquish it again, or, more often than not, allow God to help me to be willing to do so.

The section that describes which of the desires of Rees's nature the Spirit started touching and replacing was particularly poignant to me, with the challenging of ambition being the part that I see most in myself. I feel certain that my ambition has been directly and specifically affronted in the past few months. I've noticed ways in which it has also in the past, but never so as intensely as recent times. While I have never been cutthroat in my actions, I am not one to sit and let opportunities pass. I even go so far as to find opportunities when there are none present. In more practical terms, this translates into I am not the kind of person to graduate and then stay home. That's a ludicrous notion. Yet what have I done? Graduated and then stayed home, not desiring anything more than to be faithful to attend the whos and the whats in front of me. I never thought I'd be okay with that, even for just a short season as this one has thus far been.

I do also feel like God has been holding me in the place where I am now in order to allow this time to settle within me. He did the same with Rees in a short span of five days. I'm not sure why my experience has been so much more lengthy and slow than his, but I trust God has his reasons. Regardless of the difference in time and intensity, though, I do connect with Rees's story on that level and am slowly waiting until the time when this is over, which I do trust will come, perhaps in the not-so-distant future, if my feelings are correct.

When asked by a friend recently how I have been, the only answer I gave was to quote a few lines from one of my favorite songs by the band downhere:

"Love's breaking me down

Like waves to stone, over and over

Love's breaking new ground

Changing my every way"

Indeed it has, and my ways have been changing dramatically.

If I have gotten all of this from only 44 pages into a 280 page book, I'm eager to see what will come from the rest of it.

Announcing Centricity Nation!

I have thus far not been the kind of person who has fallen into the trap of unemployment equaling no life. Which in a subtle way is perhaps one of the reasons I'm not employed? (But that's another subject altogether.)

Among the many things I've been doing with my life is something that I am tickled silly to be able to share with you all.

Now announcing Centricity Nation!

Centricity Nation is a website run by fans and friends of Centricity Music and its goal is to connect fans of Centricity's various artists. I and the other brains behind the site believe strongly in the work of Centricity and its artists and as we were brought together because of them, we want to share that gift of community with others.

You can find the site at http://www.centricitynation.com/. If you see something that interests you, be sure to leave a comment. We have big dreams for the site and they'll only be possible with people like you.

Hope to see you around!

Independently dependent.

I've been thinking much about how I was raised and the ones who facilitated the said raising.

As a person who emerged from the womb with practicality and willfulness in her bones, I had a certain advantage in matters of successful, efficient independent thinking and living over some in the world. For that reason, in the hands of a different kind of guidance I think I still would have spent my childhood stubbornly desiring to assert myself and do it the best way possible. But I am not so foolish to think that my parents and the environment in which we lived, that was partly created by them and partly placed upon us by life's uncertain nature, but whose tone was always completely determined by them, did nothing to encourage those qualities that were in me before entering the world.

My parents have been amazing. My mom in particular, simply because she was the one I spent all day, every day with, and therefore necessarily bore a more direct impact on the finer points of my growing up. I was never belittled. Never made to feel dumb. Always called upon to rise to the occasion, all the while being encouraged to believe that I could rise to the occasion. I also wasn't coddled. Nor was I inappropriately sheltered. Life was hard and there was never a time when that was hidden from me. I don't ever remember living under a false pretense that a good life would be easily handed to me. My first memory is of visiting the Little Rock Children's Hospital where my newly-born brother was in the infant ICU, not able yet to survive off of medical equipment because his lungs were so underdeveloped that he couldn't breathe. I wasn't even two yet. My harsh reality check came early.

I feel like I landed in life and was told, "Here you go. This is it. Make of it what you will. It can be ugly. It can also be pretty. Either way it's a gift and it's yours to do something with," starting even before my then wee bladder was potty trained.

From the beginning I was also consistently told, "Here, you can do this. It doesn't matter that you don't know how to do it yet, I'll teach you. Or better yet, you may not even need a teacher. You might just be able to figure this out on your own. Try it and see."

I am inexpressibly grateful that the independence ball was tossed into my court so early on.

The combination of my innate senses and such encouragement to take ownership of myself and always strive to find the best in every situation formed the magic brew needed for me to become an independent woman who could successfully be independent and not just one who solitarily made a mess of everything she tried. By the time I was in high school I was able to take care of a whole household by myself, and actually did it when my mom became ill and there was no one else around to keep everyone fed, clothed and clean. I spared not one thought to incredulity at the time because I was just doing what had to be done and what I knew I was capable of, but from my 23-year-old perspective, if I were to meet a 15-year-old who cooked, cleaned, and did laundry for five people every day and took care of a 5-year-old, all while trying to study all those other trifles like science, history and how to form a well thought out essay, I would be amazed. I even started making my own lesson plans and homework schedules when I was 12. What kid does that? (If you happen to know one, feel free to introduce me. I would feel privileged to find such a kindred spirit.)

By the time I hit the magic adult age, I had no worries about being alone or taking care of myself. My family knew that and shared my lack of concern. But the other great thing about my parents is that the whole time they were encouraging me to think and act independently, they were still standing right next to me saying, "I want to help you. Not because you're incapable, but because I love you." Their combination of respect and sacrificial care left a deep impression on me and I grew to be compelled to reciprocate in kind and to allow myself to live vulnerably enough to let someone help me.

So that's how we've been rolling at the Harmon House and how we continue to roll. We're a family of five incredibly independent people who could easily hit the road any day and decide to leave the others on the other side of the country, but who have been given the grace to still like each other enough to stick around and make the decision to love enough to help and to let ourselves be loved by each other.

They are why I am exactly where I am now. I do have a feeling that our day-to-day dynamic will be changing soon. That's both expected and as it should be. Whenever it does change, I am very grateful to know that even in a lack of daily physical presence, they'll still be there offering up an emphatic "You can do this."

Why do I even try?

Today. Oh, today.

On Facebook, starting this morning and continuing on into the early evening, I campaigned, not fiercely but I campaigned nonetheless, to get someone to come to my house. My mom's been in pain, Calyn's been covered by the first week of school, Austyn, Adam and I have been stuck at home. (I would have included my dad in this sentence because he's been working like that proverbial dog, but because of all that work, I knew he probably wouldn't be home if someone came over. Or if he was, he'd probably apologize to whomever came over for being a bad host, and then promptly go to bed.) I knew we'd all like it if some new life walked into the house. The atmosphere has been far too despondent.

While enticing to some, my campaign proved rather fruitless. One friend this morning expressed interest in dropping by, but his wife was out of town and he was babysitting his granddaughter. Other friends vowed they would have been here in a second, but they live too far away. Folding a map to shorten the continent didn't work. No TV cabinets, wardrobes or other sundry pieces of household furniture were found to house magical passages to my house or anywhere near it.

At least I gave it the old college try.

Skip to the scene where we're eating dinner. There I sit on the couch with my plate on my lap, 2 of the 3 boys already populating the living room furniture as well, and what should we hear but a knock on the door. As I had a plate of food and a pillow in my lap and was sitting far back in the abyss of our monster of a couch, I knew I couldn't jump up right away. I also knew my dad in the other room was closer to the door and could probably make it there before me. So I stayed in my seat, eagerly looked at the door, and thought. "Did someone decide to drop by and they didn't tell me?!" My dad opens the door and in walks...

...one of Adam's brothers. He had come to give Adam some mail and some of his things that he wasn't able to get when he moved out. ("Moved out".......but that's a rant I don't need to get into right now.)

1) He is not one of the 300-something people who comprise my Facebook friend list.

2) He didn't come to see me. Didn't come to see my mom. Didn't even know that my mom's been ill. And wasn't intending to stick around and visit at all. Just drop off his deliveries, exchange a few societal conversational courtesies, and go back to his home.

I wanted someone to come over and someone came over, all right. But it wasn't because of any effort on my part.

No control over my life. None.