He just spoke, using pieces of truth he tore from the world to pass on to the next boy or girl, man or woman who could listen and hear. He just thought, quietly processing art and movement and peace. 

Class met under the library where the art department lived; the roots of knowledge are art and paint and clay. Our class dove, danced, and dared through the Renaissance and the Baroque and the Modern periods. My professor prayed for us at the beginning of each class and if we were lucky, he would talk about the over-arching metanarrative, a common man would call this his purpose or work or business. He would sweep his hand from left to right when he said over-aching metanarrative  as if he was brushing heaven with the thought. His was the bride of Christ. He believed he could spend his entire life exploring that concept through his art and thought and love.

As I begin to settle in myself, I am stepping into acknowledging my own over-arching metanarrative, fingertips reaching toward God and wisdom and truth or at least one little aspect of it all, the little piece I have been given to extend myself into in order for others to see that part of the map. What a beautiful thing. God gives us all things to explore, not the WHOLE thing, just parts, and we are to share in order to see it all. What a fantastic map we would create, all of our over-arching metanarratives displayed.

Think, live, create.
Find it, explore it, share it.

I kind of miss that guy.

1. I am wearing jeans at work! I have big hair and a tshirt on.

2. 3rd weekend of Picnic…we’re inching closer to the end.

3. Guest blogging  (good one this week): www.codyandsheila.com

4. I am ravenous. This isn’t indiciative of most Fridays, just this Friday.

5. Only three more Fridays until CANADA! Did you know it is really, REALLY cold in Canada. Surprisingly frigid.

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Definitely read codyandsheila.com, I’m discussing the HALF MARATHON!
Hopefully, I will be adding a few more awesome
“Before I turn 25″ things to my list.

Shall we discuss what has been happening in my neck of the woods?

1. Tech week/Performance: I was wrecked. Last night, I got home from our matinée performance and photo call, started laundry, took a purple pill, and fell asleep by 9 o’clock. I feel as if my brain has been missing for the past month and a half while I’ve been in rehearsal for Picnic. What a process it has been. I will need a little time for retrospect, but I can honestly tell you all that I have been given SO much because of this show.  

Check out the Green Room Blog for info concerning my whereabouts: http://ltvabeach.wordpress.com/

2. The BAM: wouldn’t you like to know.

3. 10 Miles. I broke 10 miles last Sunday in the rain. In preparation for a half marathon, I have learned a lot about my abilities, faith, and presence. I am really excited to participate in the Shamrock Half this Sunday, and I intend to eat a MOO MOO Mister Cow and all my chips shamelessly afterwards. That is my reward. Moes….and maybe skinny dip…and I am taking Monday off because I’ll go directly from the half to my matinée, awesome. Woo!

4. Jason’s Deli: If you’ve never met one of these establishments, I suggest you google map one, and plan a visit. Immediately. Oh, it is so good.

5. Pretty girl: Growing up, I was always a little chunky, a little odd, a little nerdy. I wet my pants in the third grade and never quite overcame. I didn’t win the 5th grade secretary election. I was a drama nerd, and I had frizzy hair. I never felt very pretty, never felt very girl like, never felt confident. Somehow, my confidence found a source in Christ of the past few months. Having established myself in Him, I feel as if I have evolved into a new creation, His. I am excited about the identification that creates, and the exploration of the fullness associated with it. What a blessing to not feel out-of-place or odd or wrong any longer. A liberation. A life. A gift.

6. Green Run: I still love it, and I cry when I think about leaving.

7. Leaving: for Graduate School. I will start a Master of Arts in School Counseling this Fall at Regent University. To be equipped to help students in practical and effective ways gets me extremely excited. I really am excited, but I am so thankful to have a few more months here.

8. 161: I weighed in last week and jumped around with my trainer for a second. I am so excited to be feeling a little more light and thankful to see progress. Progress. Life. Good.

9. Canada: I get to visit in 1 month! HERE I COME!!!!!!!!!!!

9.5: Harry Potter: I’m reading them finally. I am not sure what the hubub has been about, but I am about to begin book three, which I hear is the best.

10. Friends: I continue to be so thankful and so humbled by the provision of good friends who have clearly been ushered into my life by God. 

So, life is happening, and I am just trying to acknowledge God in all of it.

I can’t wait for the summer. Summer clothes, air, sandals, heat, sun, life, bikes, pancakes, sand, jobs, trips, vacation, friends, but I am looking at life right now. Marveling. Here. Thankful.

What are you looking forward to and what are you looking at right now?

Growing up is a remarkably beautiful process. Stepping into new seasons, running from old ones. Exploring the world with the knowledge learned the day before. It’s neat.

I am excited to announce I will be a guest blogger for a couple of sites over the next few months. I am not consistent with this blog, but I think having the accountability of others will help. Once published, I’ll link it up to the Fickle Monster so you can keep up with me.

Just in case you wanted to know, this is a glimpse of what is happening in February:

1. Training for the Shamrock Half Marathon
2. Rehearsing for Picnic at Virginia Beach Little Theatre
3. Subsequently, moisturizing my lips and brushing my teeth A LOT
4. Judging forensics competitions
5. Completing my application/interviews for GRADUATE SCHOOL
6. Learning how to do BURPEEs properly
7. Cutting the crap
8. Loving the weather on 2/18/2011
9. Laughing with students
10. Laughing at myself
10.5. Discovering the Shamrock Shake

And most importantly, I am loving God…and discovering faith, pure, simple, and wild. Happy February friends!

I’ve been walking, running even through life, time. Everything slips past me very quickly; tomorrow turns into last month in a breath. I am assuming this is the time condition. Movement is quick, grass is withering, the flowers are fading. Isaiah is no joke.

Maybe it is a bad thing, but I am trying to cut the crap this year. Remove the dross, whatever you want to call it. I am working towards peace, kind thinking, and positive movement. Being proactive, identifying what needs investment and making it happen. With that resolution comes the consequence of turning away some mutts.

We all have them. The mutts who visit our back door, begging for scraps and sometimes getting more. They’re cute right? Sometimes they’re  junky, beat up, messy things that need salvation through the little plate we set out for them. We feed them once, just once, assuming they won’t come back or promising ourselves we won’t feed them when they do. But, come back, they do. The process becomes regular, a feeding schedule develops. Mutts aren’t meant to linger; they aren’t meant to make home, but they do because we let them in. We are sorry for them because they look so pathetic and the SPCA makes those outrageous commercials. We weep, we attach, we feed.

They are mutts; they don’t belong. They are hungry beggars, needy and selfish. If they don’t beguile you, they’ll get someone else.   

Every day, I promise myself not to feed the mutt; the lies, the injustice, the hatred, the jealousy, the mess. Some days I do. But today, I’m cutting the crap, removing the dross, shutting the door, turning my back, and walking away from the mutts.

If I don’t, they’ll always come back.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

At the same time, I am reading the Pioneer Woman’s blog which makes me want to go buy a copy of Crimson Tide, visit someplace called the J Bar, and put a downpayment on a perfectly painted apartment on Goethe street in Chicago,  just to have to cancel my request a month later for ONE outrageously wonderful reason.

Sometimes stories are just beyond believable.

I’ve been pretty bad about this whole, before I turn 25 blogging. Oh well.

Taking a trip south is always a good idea, as is spending time with beloved friends. I spent my 4 day weekend in South Carolina’s Upstate and genuinely enjoyed the southern comfort. My travels over the past few months have afforded me moments of solitude and subsequently thought.

The following is a list of this I may blog about someday:

1. The opposite of destruction/Peace Theory
2. Redistribution of Joy/Replacement Theory
3. Purposed for value through being/Existence Theory
4. Performance based relation/Humanity Theory
5. Unconditional Love/Jesus Theory
6. The Count of Monte Cristo text length/Entertainment Theory
7. Janis Joplin/Play Theory

Hopefully, I will have the opportunity to expound, explore, and entertain through those topics. Maybe they’re all really boring and pointless, because now I am tired.

I am not ashamed of this fact…maybe a little embarrased. I suppose my assumptions concerning gyms are based on generalizations gathered from Gold’s gym ads and the Jersey Shore.

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something I do not even have words for

Well, I did it. Yesterday, Corey stepped me through the process of touring, enrolling, and groaning. I promised I wouldn’t quit, and this morning I went to my first spin class. Oh sweet gracious!

Let me describe :

3:00-4:30 a.m. I have a terrible dream concerning my first spin class, including sweaty women, broken bicycles, and sixty dollars.

4:30 a.m. I wake up.

4:35 a.m. I finally roll downstairs (not literally), drink an unfortunately small amount of coffee, grab my laundry, and pull myself back upstairs.

4:40 a.m. I clothe myself in the armour of spin class assuming my nike shirt is made of moisture wicking material.

4:45 a.m. Leave the homeland and head for the promiseland

4:58 a.m. Arrive and gasp in shock at the conglomeration of business men and women standing outside of the promiseland at this unfortunate hour.

5:00 a.m. Run in and claim my locker

5:10 a.m. Prep for my spin (this is a science ladies and gents including measurements based on your hips, arm lengths, and butt cheeks)

5:16 a.m. It begins.

During this hour, a woman wearing a microphoned headsets shouts directions of an amazing playlist. Directions including sit, 3rd, stand, pace, attack, and hover. Let’s just say my wicking tee looked like a tie-dye tee when all was said, done, and spun.

6:26 a.m. Done….done. Done.

I’d like to say these men were in my class, but we only had one dude in participation who totally rocked the spinning. I looked like the one in the middle. Awesome.

So, I joined a gym before I turn twenty five. 
I will be paying for that membership well after I turn twenty five.

I am not ashamed…well, maybe a little.

If anyone would like to join me for spin Friday’s, I have some friend passes!

Let’s go.

I just went through a collection of old xanga posts. God bless those warm days of love and experience and Christian college and friends. So lovely, so wonderful, so safe. To me, my college experience looks like a strand of pearls, each filled with epochal moments, strung together with no room for more.

Well, let’s just get to the point of this particular session. Life.

For two years, I’ve wanted to replace my current life for the emotion, slendor, wonder of college. I’ve wanted to be “Cora Flottman, senior theatre major from Virginia Beach, Virginia, happy and full of promise, over extended, perfectly happy with it, prideful, arrogant, humble, and funny.” That girl. Discovering she does not exist anymore has been quite the process. One which God, through his grace, has allowed me to walk though because He longs for me to just be. Just be.

Looking back at those xanga entries reminded me of my fascination with the greatest commandment. Loving God and loving His people. I have a healthy fascination which rarely renders complete obedience. But closer I come. So here is what I am learning about life. God. Souls. Souls. God. God. God. God. Being.

The holy binary, my thought life. God did not promise us earthly comfort, happiness, or riches but he did promise us one another when he placed Adam’s rib in the dust and rose up Eve, whispering a soul into her being. Together, they loved God and loved eachother with no other expectations. God. Souls. Love. Being. 

Sometimes, I get mad. Like that irritable kid, incouragable and manic. My screwed up relationships, issues, angers, frustrations rise up, screaming helplessly, angrily at the God who did not give as I desired. But He is there, present before a creation that cries out: god, god, god, souls, god. He promised me himself, and he promised me people. People to stand beside as we love God, completely.

And so, the human experience shifts. 

I guess I’ll talk about that later because the Benadryl is starting to work.

This year will be different. I will turn 25 in 7 months; yea, not halfway there yet, but I am preparing. As I approach my 25th, I will be doing a few exciting things and chronicalling them here!

I’ve already done a few neat things during my 24th year; so, I’ll have to fill in some blanks over the next couple of weeks. Shall we get excited? Yes!

With that said, what are you trying to accomplish before your next birthday?

Much love.