HONESTLY SPEAKING

Friday Feet in the Sand.

Why don't I do this more often? 

Why don't I take my lunch to the beach and watch the waves curl onto the sand?

The breeze, the bees in the flowers, the little kids in their sandy flip flops...

The way the sun makes this reflective dance all the way to the horizon gives me time to pause...

time to think.

time to breathe.

time to remember that the Creator of the ocean is trustworthy with my heart, my life, my all.

And so today was a good day. A day of subway sandwich at the beach as the waves curled in and out resetting the rhythm of my day.

The Other Side Of the White Picket Fence

The other day I was talking with a friend of mine. Our conversation turned to the young women I write for and his concern that everything is pointing towards a perfect cleaned up version of how to be a woman. I wondered if I was any part of the problem, the perfection problem.

“Have the Perfect Life!” we seem to sell:  A perfect man, well groomed emotional troubles, a perfectly decorated house, a really amazing Facebook status update about your amazing life of adventure, of course a fulfilling job, a perfect body…or at least one your working on, and the most amazing friends who we can photograph, tag, and show off in our facebook posts…and just enough authenticity to make it seem you’re telling the truth. Are we all trying to create a life where we only show our best side?

I couldn’t stop thinking about our conversation. It was a good one, but a short one. I went home, I got out my teal blue anthropology colander and washed some beautiful blueberries under the water. I enjoyed the aesthetic of the dark blue against the teal and liked how they looked in my refrigerator. I love color. I love the small things. I could snap a picture of this moment and it’s beauty. The simple moments are my most cherished ones, but do I show the world the messy side of my life? Am I willing to publicly come undone?

In college my life was changed when two women came undone before me. I didn’t know them personally, but they had the courage to tell the truth in their writing. They let me see their mess, and it made me breathe a little better in the midst of mine. Sabrina Ward Harrison published her art journals where she so honestly told the story of her insecurities and triumphs in “Spilling Open the Art of Becoming Yourself” and Anne Lamott told the raw truths of her messy life and faith in “Traveling Mercies.” Both of these books changed me. They let me believe there could be beauty in the midst of my chaos.

I found these books while I was in the middle of my sophmore year of college. I was going to Pasadena City College and working at Starbucks. It was unglamourous and embarrassing to me, but on this soul journey I came to love the mess of it all, even its smelly parking lots that never had a space for my car. I’d left the expensive, prestigious Christian college because I’d mostly slept, made out with my boyfriend, and laid in my dorm room in a bit of an emotional comma earning a D in New Testament because I couldn’t see straight to memorize all of the cities along Paul’s journey to wherever he was going to and from planting churches. The summer before my senior year of high school a youth pastor had been hired at my church and he had abused about 4 of us and 20 more had felt icky…and so I was one of the 4 and the 24 of us told our stories and he was fired. He spent the next 10 years stalking me because he knew my voice to be one of the strongest testimonies. Oy vey. My twenties had a bit of a strange music over them. No wonder I gained some weight. I dodged between moments of terror and relief in those first years. 

I developed a little dance with an eating disorder. I never got scary skinny, so no one probably took it all very seriously, but the wounds to my soul were deep and wide. I could loose weight in a heartbeat and gain that powerful feeling that only leads to crazy. I’d starve myself for weeks on Diet Coke and flour tortillas and then eat a few calories in mindless need, only to discipline myself with bulimia. I believed, “oh if only I could be thin no one would know how chaotic this world is feeling all around me.” 

I’m about to turn 32 this week. I like being in my 30s and I’m not just saying that to be positive. I really do. I want to show you the messy side of my life. I believe that this year is the year I'll start telling you the whole story. I am ready to have some courage, to step out, to let you see. I want you to see how all the little and big things have had their place in making me whole even while I was coming undone over and over again. I have so much beauty and depth in my life, but much of  my contentment, the peace in my eyes has been long earned through many bouts with suffering.

This life has not gone the way I would have planned. I’ve had friends sit me down to tell me they are HIV Positive, I found my best friend on the streets of Hollywood all skinny from crystal meth, hollow and haunting in his eyes and held his bony arms begging him to get help and go to rehab. I’ve held the hand of Monica in hospital, my childhood friend, while she was in a comma fighting for her life and a third liver transplant. I’ve walked into my childhood church to attend the funeral of Ashley, who I did almost everything with, because she died tragically on a cruise ship one morning in October. Now many of my memories of my childhood are veiled with a little bit of sorrow. I’ve been assaulted and abused and I’ve lost fifty of the pounds I used to cover the beauty I thought was dangerous to live with. These are the scars that have made my life have depth and purpose and direction. I don’t walk with them as my banner or my cry, but they are the stories inside of my soul.  I have a whole list of incredible beautiful things I could list right next to all this pain. My banner is redemption. My story is renewal…over and over again.

Some of it I find very embarassing. I haven't wanted to show anyone. I'd rather clean up my mess first. I know something true: this is life. It is messy. It will keep unraveling and coming back together as if it is the way this world breathes. 

My life has been so messy.

My life has been so beautiful.

My life has been a mixture.

This year I will tell you both sides of the story.

I want you to see the paradox and truth of this life is a dance between them both.

 

You might hate your job.

You will probably fall in love.

You might get sick.

You will probably create something beautiful.

You will be the friend someone has been dying to have.

You might loose some friends.

You will probably have your heart broken…several times.

Someone might go to jail…or have a baby when the time isn’t just right…or go to the hospital and not come home.

You might be embarrassed, afraid, abused, neglected, misunderstood…

but you are not alone.

The words of a wise woman in my life ring in my ears, “Kristie, there are worse things in this life than pain and suffering, the worst thing is an unlived life.”

In the words of my favorite poet:

“Let us go then you and I as the evening is spread out against the sky…” –TS Eliot

Let’s live our life, because we’re never alone and we must take some risks to truly see the beauty and depth of color our life could be painted with. There is nothing perfect about this life, but it is an aching beauty worth living fully.

I will show you my mess. I will tell you the truth. I hope it gives you freedom to exhale and whisper a quiet, “me too.” 

Malibu Beginnings

Sometimes you find yourself with your feet in the ashes of life, and at other times you have your feet in the soil of a new beginning. 

Four years ago when Malibu Pres burned to the ground I joined a community of amazing people in a grand adventure of the unknown. We stood in the ashes. We picked through the rubble looking for something that may have endured the flames. There was barely anything left.

Yesterday I stood with the kids in the soil. I looked around at the faces of the jr. highers who were my little kids 4 years ago. They're becoming men and women, and I know that this experience shaped them. We were all a little bewildered that all of our normal and rhythmic routines were destroyed with every last crayon and marker too. I remember thinking of ways for them to connect to their grief. We built blocks out of hearts, I invited therapists to share with and guide parents, I went to Target and bought markers and crayons again. 

I remember the words of the woman who lost her castle in the same Malibu fire. She said "my possessions do not possess me." I liked that. I think there's a great freedom in finding out how much you don't need and knowing your identity rests in your soul and not your things. 

Last week I tried to think of a way the kids could participate in the groundbreaking ceremonies.  I handed out packets of colored sand and glitter and invited the children onto the soil to dump out the multicolored packets of beauty. There were were again, walking around on an empty place wondering what would come next. This time it seems there is a new beginning, a new building, a new adventure. This season have been significant to each of our lives, young and old. They have shaped me. They have shaped us. They have shown me what the church looks like without it's building and constructs. I see love. I see hope. I see justice. I see redemption. I see a colorful new beginning.

The Couch I Can't Stop Thinking About.

As I'm sure you know, I love interior design. I love doing it, dreaming about recreating my house and finding just the right this or that for a certain spot. 

Ever since the December Anthropologie Catalogue came in the mail I can't stop thinking about this couch. I think about how perfect it would be in my house. I try to rationalize that it's just a couch and that my couches are perfectly fine...but let me be honest with you: I love this couch. I think it would look even better in my house than it does in this picture...just sayin'. 

Oh dreamy couch you cost too much to be in my life right now, but I sure wish you'd be there for me when I got home from work to lounge on. 

Aching to be Known. Longing to be Seen.

I see Jesus as the perfect model of what love looks like in human form. He showed us how to live out the most loving life. Forgive, be kind to your enemies...even when it's wretchedly hard, mourn well, care for the poor...the list goes on and on. 

Today I was thinking about an aspect of love Jesus shows. He knows well the human condition as he lives it alongside of us. He knows that our desire to be known runs deep and wide. It occurs to me that the epidemic narsissism in our culture right now is a result of a deficenty. Perhaps those shouting out their name the loudest are the ones crying out from the deepest places of neglect and pain. 

Sometimes our own desire to be known can supersede our commitment to knowing someone else. I am challenged by the love Jesus shows when he walks up and knows others...he shows them that they are not invisible. 

I am so challenged to ask better questions. 

I am challeneged to reflect to others the things I see. I want to show them their compassion, their beauty, their heart. If we do this for each other, put the needs before our own love increases, and life is more full and abundant. 

 

Freeway Contemplation

Sometimes God lets us feel His heartbeat by allowing us to get close enough to someone to feel their pain and struggle. Pain so deep, struggle so hard that you share in their frustration as if it was your own. I've been on this road this weekend. So today I found myself driving to have lunch with a friend. I was in traffic, which just aggravated me all the more! "Why did everyone have to go and get in an accident today!!!?" I pondered my deeper thoughts and sadness. There I was driving down the freeway a little pissed at God. I was feeling so deeply: "What is your deal? What is your problem?! Why don't you fix this or that??"

Then, on my iPod a song came on and played through the car and spoke to me. It felt like a miracle and also like comfort.

I hope it speaks to you too...wherever you are and whatever the deepest pain of your soul is. The unanswered questions, the heartache, the moments that cause you to throw your hands up in the air. Faith is not faith if it is easy. This road, this life, it is not easy and it is not for the faint of heart to walk it out with Jesus. Even though I don't understand the way He moves...I love Him because I know His love is deeper than I can comprehend.

 

Questions by Steven Curtis Chapman

Who are You God
For You are turning out to be
So much different than I imagined

And where are you God
Cuz I am finding life to be
So much harder than I had planned

Know that I am afraid
To ask these questions
But You know they are there

And if you know my heart
The way that I believe you do
You know that I believe in You
Still I have these questions

Like How could you God
How could You be so good and strong
And make a world that can be so painful

And where were you God
I know you had to be right there
I know you never turn your head

You know that I’m confused
By all this mystery
You know I get afraid
But if you know my heart
As completely as I trust you do
Oh you know that I trust in you

Is it true 
that fore every tear I cry
You cry a thousand more 
Cuz you weep for those that weep

And are you, just holding yourself back
From crushing all the pain and evil in this world
For reasons we just cant understand for now
But isn’t there a day of redemption coming
Ohhh
Redemption is coming
Ohhh

Quickly Lord, come quickly
Lord, come quickly
Ohhh
Ohhh

So who am I God
That you would raise me from the dust
To breathe your life and your love in me
You know that I believe

Kindness: Lessons from the guy at the drive thru and the girl on the airplane.

 

I've heard it said that kindness is love in action. I try, I really do, but I fail as often as I succeed it seems.

Tired on Friday afternoon in Texas, I drove through a Burger King near my hotel. I had driven in horrible LA-like traffic and then got lost driving around looking for my exit. I'd had my fill of being disoriented and turned around on the Texas highways which are hard to figure out at first. From what I could see with my eyes (and I wasn't about to attempt the highway again at this point) my choices were Burger King, Kohls, or Wings N Things. I chose the first because the second has nothing but clothes and the third looked like a really bad idea.

I ordered a kids chicken nugget meal and when it came to me, 10 minutes later while I waited at the drive thru, it was all cold and gross. Rather than practice kindness I was abrupt, rude, irritated. I said: "Umm this is cold. Nevermind. Just give me my money back... No I don't want you to remake it, I wanted it to be hot and good the first time around. My money back will be fine." I ate a granola bar from my bag and felt kind of ashamed of my tone. Now, before you go on telling me that "it's okay to demand good service," replay that in the bitchiest tone of voice you can muster. That was the way I said it. I'm quite sure there were some choice words said about me as he walked away. I did not win the favorite customer award.

Was I wrong? Yes and no. My food was cold and it is alright to ask for good customer service, I just could have said it nicer. I didn't have to take out my frustration with the highway on this man at the drive thru. It's my behavior I can manage, not his. 

The thing is, you never know what people are going through.  What if I knew what was going on in the life of the man at the drive through? I might have acted differently. 

On my flight home, this lesson sunk in deeper. I sat in an isle seat and a very nice young woman made her way down the isle with her big black carry on bag and asked if she could take the center seat. It was a full flight and I was relieved to have a pleasant person to sit by. She was friendly and we did the usual "What were you in Houston for?" 

I answered first, "A friend's wedding." 

Then she answered: "My boyfriend has stage four colon cancer and he's here for his last chance at treatment." 

Wow. You just never know, do you? I listened and she shared. She's 24 and so this all seems to have gone much differently than she expected when she began to date him.  He was diagnosed in the first months of their relationship. We talked for a few hours about this whole season she's in and the complexities of it. Her family wishes she'd break up with him, they worry about the stress of this all...she understands their feelings, but she wants to love him well and with integrity...but it's getting to be a lot for someone that she hasn't known very long. She is showing him unusual kindness to love him through to his death, which she confesses looks eminent. "He's tired, he's ready to go..." she explained.

I was honored to hear this girl's story, and to enter into it with her for a moment. We prayed together in the terminal at the end of our 4 hour flight. Her life, like our flight, is full of turbulance and pain...and sometimes it's good to have a sister to sit by when it gets bumpy.

The truth is, I didn't need a kids meal anyway...I was annoyed, frustrated, and tired...and so I hope that the man at the drive through window wasn't carrying a heavy load...but most people are and so I am reminded to be kind, even when someone doesn't deserve it and especially when I don't feel like it.

I'm inspired to be a person who offers unusual kindness to the world. Kindness comes to us like a free gift, like grace in action, love in motion. Kindness isn't about right or wrong but about a way we decide to live and move about the world. 

I turned to the girl on the plane and we mused looking over a sea of anonymous faces, "What if we knew the thoughts of those with us on the plane? If we had any idea the burdens each human was carrying...each worry, fear, hope, and dream I believe it would move us towards an overwhelming compassion, empathy and perhaps a little more kindness.

She nodded, "Yes, I believe you are correct. You just never know what kind of burden someone is carrying."

"The islanders showed us unusual kindness. They built a fire and welcomed us all because it was raining and cold." Acts 28:2

She Needs Us: Girls, Self-Hatred and Toxic Hazardous Culture

This summer I was talking to a young woman in Malibu about the pressures she says the girls are facing at Malibu High. I know well that Malibu High is just one of the many many high school campuses where girls are epidemically struggling in a prison of self-hatred when it comes to their bodies. As someone committed to working with women to help them recover from this problem, as I have, I wanted to listen well to this girl. 

She is 15, beautiful and articulate. I asked her permission to share this story and she has given it to me willingly.  A few months ago she was approached by a modeling agent who said they would like to bring her on board. Once that conversation began, the agent said to the 15 year old girl "you'll need to loose about 30 pounds first." 

This girl doesn't need to loose a pound. Seriously.

She looked at me with a rare confidence as she told the story. She said, "Kristie, I just didn't want to get into that kind of thinking. I know my body is healthy and I am at an ideal weight for my height. It just made me so sad that this is the standard." 

The next part of what she said is the part that haunts me to this day:

With a serious, and undramatic matter-of-fact tone she said "You know, here's the thing: Each summer a whole group come back from vacation thinner. Their clothes hang on their bodies. Their bones stick out. I look around and I think, 'we're creating our own holocaust,' and is anyone doing anything about it!?"

Here is a video my friend Hugo Schwyzer and the wonderful people at Heathy is the New Skinny put together. It is a message to the fashion industry, and a message to each one of us. They're doing something, and it makes me excited. Watch, share, spread the word. Our girls are dying inside and many on the outside...and we must do something. 

 

The Ambush of the Facebook Wedding Album

There’s nothing like looking through your ex-boyfriend’s wedding album on Facebook that can make you want to go buy a happy meal and take a long nap. There I was at work minding my own business, when in the feed of my homepage one photo after another kept coming up, album after album: “Rehearsal Dinner,” “Wedding,” “Honeymoon.”

Click, click, click.

I have to admit, he looked really good. She wasn’t too bad either.  “Did I make the wrong choice?” I wondered inside as my heart sank to see him kiss the bride.

I mentally went through all the reasons that I had told him I didn’t want to date him anymore. I tried to go through all the weird and awkward moments we shared instead of dwelling on all of the fantastic and romantic ones flooding into my imagination like a scenic movie trailer.

I had to be honest with myself. I felt so sad to see that he had truly moved on. I wouldn’t (or shouldn’t) expect anymore emails or instant messages from him as if his head was poking around the corner of my computer screen to see if I was still willing to reconsider, to maybe give it another go. 

I truly do want him to be happy, but sitting at my desk on a Thursday afternoon with the sunlight streaming in the window like a blinding reality, I felt jealous and melancholy.  All the usual self-pep-talk inside of me fell silent as I clicked through the images and sat alone with my thoughts.  I was missing him terribly as I read “Just Married,” on the back of their car in white paint.

I took a deep breath, turned off my Facebook page and tried to get back to the mound of email in my inbox. This work felt unforgiving in the midst of the emotions swirling in my stomach.  You know what they say about checking your Facebook account at work: “Don’t!”

It was a common case of “wanting to be wanted,” but wanting celibacy for all of my ex-boyfriends? This is probably a little extreme. I wondered inwardly, is this my ego or some old feelings resurfacing for another round of the “what if” game?

I guess I have to let them all go – my ex-boyfriends that is. They are characters in the story of my life. I can page through all the moments I’ve shared with them, many that I treasure. They have given my life a depth of experiences and windows into the reality of another’s human experience.  Dating hasn’t been all bad. If I’m honest, it’s brought more color to my life.  I want to live a great life, and a great life is hardly filled with dwelling on all of your regrets and mistakes. It’s acknowledging them, letting go, and living in gratitude for the people that have come along the way to share their stories with our’s. That’s when a life of freedom and joy is found.

The letting go can be so hard, but it happens if we let it. Maybe in the past I haven’t let go because I’ve wanted to hang on to the idea that these men had called me beautiful and loved me. Perhaps with some I hoped they might change and return to me. Maybe I’ve just created the illusion of having many options in my life by holding onto them so that I don’t feel lonely.

Holding on is hardly connected to letting go. Freedom is found in knowing that I’m valuable not matter what he thinks of me, or if he still does at all.

I want to live in reality. In the present. I want to look forward at my life and not look back mourning and questioning all the relationships I’ve left behind. So, to my ex-boyfriend who just got married: Congratulations. Truly. I let you go. I surrender myself to this moment and I hope your life and future is as bright as I’m creating mine to be.

Have you let go of someone in the past in order to pave the way for your future? Are you living in a fantasy or are you willing to take the leap and live in a beautiful new reality for your life?

A few things to consider if you want to live a healthy life:

1. Friends? Is it helping or hurting to remain “friends” with an ex on Facebook? Sometimes enough time has passed and the relationship is truly healthy enough that you can be friends. A lot of times this is not possible. I’d recommend digging really deep and getting honest with yourself. How many times do you prowl through their pictures? If you’re taking daily trips down memory lane, then it might be time to get off of that road.
2. Closure? Is there an “I’m sorry” or a “thank you” letter or conversation that needs to be had? If so, and it if it won’t hinder or hurt them and their current relationship, I recommend having those conversations. They are usually for your benefit. I’m the kind of person that likes to leave people better for knowing me. I have found most times that my ex-boyfriends say “oh geeze, I forgot about that…don’t worry!” but I walk away feeling free and lighter inside. So if you need to, have one closing conversation of gratitude or forgiveness and then be done with it. Move forward not backwards.
3. Switch it up. Put yourself in your future boyfriend’s shoes. Would you want you to be friends with a certain person on facebook. Do a pre-emptive strike and clear these people out of your life if needed. Be free. Be open. Live your life now.

My Pretend Boyfriend

There he goes. He’s texting me again. I thought I was done with this. I promised myself that I would stop this text-relationship. I vowed to only go on real dates with real men, real men who live in my real life! It’s been 2 weeks since the real man I like has called to have a real conversation, and so here he is, the other man in my life, the “substitute-pretend-boyfriend,” texting me sweet things this Friday night. It’s raining outside, I’m home watching The Devil Wears Prada, and I wonder, “How does he always know when I’m feeling the most lonely and hopefully romantic?” Perhaps he feels the same way too.

He seems to have radar for these moments.

I used to think my pretend boyfriend could be a real potential boyfriend, but then he flaked a few times when we set up real dates, and most notably didn’t show up for my birthday party.  After a string of disappointments and forgiven “misunderstandings,” I suppose it’s clear that I’m taking what I get, but is what I’m getting enough? Are a few flirty text messages capable of filling in for the real potentially amazing boyfriend who I haven’t met yet?

Probably not.

Well, let’s be honest, most definitely not.

The strength inside of me wants to push away from this proverbial bag of “Cheese-its”, because the “carrot sticks” of waiting are unquestionably better for me in the end. But on this Friday night, the “Cheese-its” are somehow helping pass the time more comfortably.

What’s so wrong with it anyway, right? It’s just a text message. But we all know it’s not just a text message. It’s about 500 text messages. Back and forth, ebb and flow, here we go…and I’m attached again.  I find myself annoyed when he pauses too long. It feels like rejection. Or is it like addiction? Maybe he’s my “instant gratification pretend boyfriend.” No consequences, no responsibility, just nice things back and forth…attachments formed that will never fully be known. I’m emotionally attached to him, and I barely know the sound of his voice.

The thing is, I don’t want a life all strung together with half-way, half-hearted relationships, fantasies and Cheese-it instant gratification pretend boyfriends. I want the real thing. I want real love, real phone calls, real dates, and a real man on the couch someday growing old with me.  It seems I have to get better at waiting, better at living fully in the moment rather than wasting away the time with chit chat in an imaginary text message land.

So I text him one more time, “I need to be done with this whole late night texting thing with you. This isn’t working for me.” We have to make a choice to live our real lives rather than creating an imaginary one that will never fill us up. Real life is just too good to miss.

The next time he texted, I simply didn’t respond.

And that’s how I broke up with my pretend boyfriend.

Do you have a few pretend boyfriends in your phone? Are you afraid to have open, quiet space to wait well for a good man to come into your life?

A Helpful Tip: In my phone I replace any guy’s name that I don’t want to respond to (but might be tempted to) with a phrase like “Don’t do it!” or “You are valuable.” Their text next to an encouraging phrase like this are usually incongruent. It helps remind me when the text comes up to leave it alone and live fully in the life I have before me.