a rose by any other name...

no. i'm not trying to say i'm on the same level as shakespeare.

a name...what IS in a name? i look at my sister's names and think, "Betsie. Corrie. Ten Boom. pretty noble heritage." i take a look at the meaning of mine, "full of grace" and realize, i am exactly as i've been labelled.

but there's so much more to our identity than our simple naming.

i've read several things lately on this...
one of these is a book, Circle of Quiet by Madeliene L'Engle...amazing woman. amazing book. if i wasn't so set on being the best annetta He created me to be, well, i would simply want to be the next great Madeleine. she speaks of our identities...of the things that happen in life to negatively create an aura of our identitites that just isn't true! we believe so much about how people interact with us, about things we see others doing...we see and hear and internalize all the different messages and come up with a distorted view of who we are created to be.

in Velvet Elvis, Rob Bell says,

"I was making lists of all the people I was working to keep happy. My therapists said it was clear that there were significant numbers of people I was spending a significant amount of time working to please and that my issue was a simple one.

I was anticipating something quite profound and enlightening as I got out my pen.

He said this: 'sin.'

And then he said, in what has become a pivotal moment in my journey, 'Your job is the relentless pursuit of who God has made you to be. And anything else you do is sin and you need to repent of it.'

wow.

i'm here.

praying He stops nothing short of working out His created purpose in my life today...

being the best created annetta i can be,

annetta

powerful creation

Garden of Eden
Originally uploaded by daphneyb.

muck.
ugliness.
envy.
anger… fear.

i get so bogged down in my sin. the muck overwhelms me. and all i can see is my dirt.

i've been this way for a while, i am so good at identifying the ugly parts of me. and i live in that self-identity.

so sad. honestly.
He has created me.

thus, i am created to be a beautiful, wonderful human being.

a glorious creation unlike any other.

reading through the Gospels, Jesus often seemed a little exasperated with the disciples. i mean, who wouldn't be? as a rabbi, Jesus had called them to follow and learn from Him. if you look back through rabbinical codes, etc., it's clear that a rabbi doesn't invite an oaf of an individual to follow him.

a rabbi weighs and judges the abilities of the individual first. upon seeing the person is capable of following him, he invites the individual follow him. when Jesus was frustrated with the disciples, it was not because he was thinking,
"wow. how'd I get stuck with these bozo's?!"
rather, he was frustrated with them because He knew He had created them with every ability to accomplish the tasks at hand.

He knew they could follow Him...they just kept getting bogged down in 'stuff'.

maybe Peter kept thinking, "oh gosh. i screwed up last time...can't screw up this time...better not say the wrong things..." and in his overanalyzing, hyper-sensitivity, ultra-stressed state, he missed the point. and screwed up.

i think we call that self-fulfilling prophecy.

Rob Bell enlightens Jesus' relationship with the disciples for me in Velvet Elvis. Jesus didn't leave the disciples with the Great Commission because He felt they couldn't do it. rather, He left the disciples with the Great Commission because He knew they could do it.

granted, they also got the Holy Spirit as a little parting gift.

still, Jesus was frustrated with them because He knew they had such great abilities and potential and they simply weren't living up to that potential. and Jesus knew a thing or two about their potential. after all, He was there when they were created.

He knew what they were capable of.

and He thought they were capable of much, much more.

i've had Marianne Williamson's words in my head since i got to Estes:

Our greatest fear is not that we are inadequate, but that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, handsome, talented, and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We were born to make manifest the glory of God within us. It is not just in some; it is in everyone. And, as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

ok. don't get me wrong. i self-help mumbo-jumbo as much as anyone. but i don't think recognizing our God given purpose and created ability is self-help talk. i think comprehending that God created me with much more power and beauty than i give Him credit for is actually discrediting His creation...it's failing to give glory.

it's failing to allow the glorious, created version of me to exist.

but i am slowly becoming that woman...

i remember reading C.S. Lewis's depiction of Adam and Eve in his sci-fi book Pereleandra. Lewis's Adam wasn't a wimpy, burdened-down-with-his-depravity sort of creature. rather, he was beautiful in his terrible awesomeness. the gloriousness of his created being was manifested for all to drink in. and the lady that represented Eve? how could i fail to mention her?!? she was the embodiment of all that is gracious and lovely and beautiful. she had such a pure heart of trust with the Lord. yet a strength about her that was evident in the very way she walked.

she was the epitome of grace and beauty.
of the mighty, yet gentle and quiet spirit.

beautiful inside and out.

how do i become that same 'eve' i was created to be? sure. i still have areas of muck to be waded through and cleared out. BUT, i am increasingly freed from this curse as i embrace the fullness of His grace. is there a terribly, awesome, glorious Annetta that awaits only my standing up and becoming? is it an issue of simply becoming me? is it an ontological issue, an issue of simply being who i am? meanwhile, am i falling short of my created purpose?

i oftimes live as if someone has sliced a little into my Achilles heel. i live as if i'm crippled a little...in all honesty, i think most of the time my Father is saying,

"stand up My child! I've created you for far greater than this...you are falling short only because you choose to fall short, and not because i created you a little 'less' than perceived potential. live out My purpose for you today!"

so today.

i am relentlessly pursuing the created Annetta. not in a 'self-actualized' kinda' way. but in a "i'm a daughter of the King, created with specific and magnificent abilities to love Him" kinda' way...

i'm living out my true identity...

magnifico! that He has created me! and that He spent time on me, just as He did the brilliant, majestic, terrible, beautiful mountains that surround...i am humbled as i reach for the higher heights He has created me for...let's reach together.

not to be better than one another.
but to be a better me. let's be who we were created to friends!

and let's change the world.

a sinus infectionated epiphany

first off...can 'infectionated' really be a real word?

it all starts with my walk to the library today. to check email. post, etc., i use the great city library of Estes Park. fun. as i trek from my house the view is gorgeous and the thoughts are always abundant.

i was thinking back to my first few weeks at Estes...i remember scrambling to try and figure out something to write...i knew i had a whole lotta' stuff happenin in the ol' 'hopper', but didn't really have words for anything yet. so...i didn't post much. and what i did post oftimes was only comprehensive for yours trully.

and now...well...i could write for days on all the things that seem to be nicely fittin' together.

my thought as i was walking was this: it's like a sinus infection....my head was so stuffed up with all kinds of stuff. then the Word came along like a perfect prescription drug....and slowly but surely, the crazy stuff has drained out of my head and left...well, hopefully left only good stuff.

nothing groundbreaking here.

just a humourous thought on mucuos (sp?) to alienate the average reader.
(sorry shirley!)

love y'all....

start my trek homeward presently.

so much...

the last of the trilogy....fear v. love

it was 2am. i was losing in a battle against a sinus infection, had a total of 17 hours of sleep in the last 4 nights, and had a 10 hour drive in store for myself the next day.

yet...

i was sitting in a hotel lobby chatting with a friend about weaknesses...his weakness?

he responded:


"a fear of man."


(i think for a moment before responding)


"What? what's 'fear of man'?"

i mean let's think about it: are we really 'afraid' of the guy sitting next to us? do i really flinch when someone walks by because i think he'll cause me pain?

while my friend never really explained his fear simply enough for this simple brain, i've been thinking about his comments ever since that evening several months ago...

have you read C.S. Lewis' space trilogy? me neither. but i did recently read the 2nd in the series, "Perelandra". The lead character, Ransom, fears the 'un-man' character in the story...why? because this particular 'un-man' is actually a human body inhabited by satan. makes ya wanna go check out the gruesomeness now doesn't it?!?


even as i read the story, i was a little creeped out by the 'un-man'. there's something unnerving when even considering a human body is inhabited by satan.

towards the end of the book, Ransom had to actually fight the 'un-man' in hand-to-hand combat. prior to the fight, the thought of touching the 'un-man', much less fighting him, totally freaked Ransom out. but, once he started fighting the 'un-man', he found that the creature was really not something to be so paralyzingly scared of.

my whole point is not to eek you out or to get you to swear of of any future possibility of reading the trilogy.

rather...my thought on fear is: confront it. sounds simple eh? a textbook answer even. but, once we confront it, it's not near as scary.

occasionally, i freak out about a boogey man in the closet. crazy. but i really do. and when this happens, i have 1 of 2 choices: freak out and lay there til morning, or check out the closet, all the while quoting Joshua 1:9. i sleep much better when i go ahead and shuffle a few hangers about checking for traces of slimy monsters.

knowing that He loves me, i face the fears. He'll take care of me.

Fear V. Love...Round 2.

i find myself really 'getting' Peter these days...

i totally get his denial of Christ following the crowing in the garden...sad that i 'get' him huh? but, if you think about it, i mean, Peter really loved Jesus. with all of his heart i believe...at least all of his heart that he knew about.

the problem was, Peter didn't even know that he had a pocket of fear. i don't think he thought anything would be scary...after all, he was a hulking, blustering, tough fisherman. isn't he supposed to be able to chew lead or something of that sort?

Peter did love Jesus. he loved Him SOO much. shouldn't this love have been enough? a love for a sinless human being, who had given him purpose...Jesus had made Peter's life worthwhile...given him meaning...

peter was scared of a few men...he was scared what they'd do to him...the same peter that had no problem fighting folks off with a knife was now cowered by the testimony of a servant .

peter let his fear control him.

i'm learning more about fear every day...how it swallows up love. i kinda' even think it might be the root of all sin.

more on fear to come....

abstracted versus distracted

On the wall
Originally uploaded by yanni.

how do you live life in an unseen world?

it'd almost be easier to understand if i were deaf or blind...or SOMETHING....

if i was blind or deaf or dumb, i'd realize that there IS in fact SOMETHING out there that i'm not engaging in.

it's not hard for a deaf man to 'get it' that there are sounds going on that he doesn't hear...

he sees mouths moving...but doesn't 'hear' a thing...

for the blind man, he can't know the beauty of a sunrise from looking it at.
for the deaf man, the perfect strains of yoyo ma's violin are lost.


these individuals are poignantly aware of a reality outside of their paradigm.


the abstract is hard for obvious reasons....you can't SEE what you're going for! you have to go have a quiet heart to even know it's there...you have to actually stop for a moment and BREATHE to realize that something other than the distracted life exists!

the distracted life is hard in it's own way...after all, living a life for the shadows of what isn't real...

it's like Plato's cave**...you know the story from a random college course you took...or if you're too young for college, take note: it'll gain ya points on a future test!

the cave is like this...there once was a man. he lived in a cave. he'd never been out of that cave. in that cave, all he had was a fire. that fire was his only light. and when the fire was blazing, it's shadows would dance on the wall...

the man started to see people in the shadows. he started to make up names and identities for each of the dancing shadows. he started to think that the shadow people were real people....he started to name them things like bob and sue and....you get my drift. it was as if he was naming volleyballs 'wilson' or something...

he was goin' a little 'off book'....

funny thing? the man was completely unaware of the reality right around the corner....

15 feet around the bend of the wall, there was an opening in the cave. and out in the 'opening' there was a whole real world with all sorts of real, not shadow, people. there were real bob's and sue's and wilson's to befriend.


now what if Plato's funny little man were to go into the real world? would he find 'real' people to be a bore and go back to his shadow people?

NO! absolutely not!

anyone who has tasted the real thing refuses to go back to the fake stuff.

there is this eternal reality that underlies everything in this world...

if we listen close enough, we can hear it...
if we breath deep enough, we can almost smell it...
if we open our mouths wide enough, He will fill us with it....

but at all times, in all places there is this 'premonition' that there is, in fact, a deeper underlying reality to 'life'.

we see some folks chasing all sorts of fantastical religious ideas, all in the name of this spiritual abstract. but the reality is, that abstract is an eternal reality of the course He has set this world upon.

the only way Jesus could have made it to the cross, in His 100% human self***, was that He was deeply connected and in tune with this deeper reality.

He knew that the world only took 7 days to create for the Originator of this reality...

and that same Originator held the reigns of His crucifiction...

Jesus was a moving, breathing human being living in the abstract realm of this world's eternal reality.

if He, as 100% human, can live in that way, cannot i?

it seems so elusive...it moves beyond my grasp every time i reach for it...

Jesus went away to the mountains...

i'm in the mountains.

He went by Himself to pray.

i'm by myself. i pray...oh to pray more!

but in Jesus prayer times, He was totally abandoned to the desires of the Father...

i find that this indeed is the struggle under the surface for me.

i have so many things i want...
dreams fulfilled:
music to be sung,
husband and family
dreams that right now are more abstract than REAL, shadows to which I have grown accustomed

to give this all up seems almost heretical. after all, aren't all these dreams good?

have no fear, i recognize the need to wait...how it's "to refine you." how the waiting is what makes me more Christlike.

but today. in the aloneness of this mountain. i am frustrated and tired of waiting. today, it's easier to live life distracted...today it's distracted versus abstracted...and let's just say, the distracted seems to be be inching ahead.



today, it's easier to be content with shadows.




i know, i know. put down the philosophy books, stop butchering the classics.

but the basic premise of the whole deal is what i've been sitting in for a while...

trying to live in the abstract. learning how to live life in the unseen realm...

Psalm 37:3-9 has been a little bit of a help with this recently...
Trust in the LORD and do good;
Dwell in the land and cultivate faithfulness.
Delight yourself in the LORD;
And He will give you the desires of your heart.
Commit your way to the LORD,
Trust also in Him, and He will do it.
He will bring forth your righteousness as the light
And your judgment as the noonday.
Rest in the LORD and wait patiently for Him;
Do not fret because of him who prospers in his way,
Because of the man who carries out wicked schemes.
Cease from anger and forsake wrath;
Do not fret; it leads only to evildoing.
For evildoers will be cut off,
But those who wait for the LORD, they will inherit the land.

and i'm still sitting, arrested, in Psalm 131...

Lord let my soul rest today in Your abstract, eternal, true reality!

cya on the flipside!


annetta




**Plato: Book VII of The Republic, The Allegory of the Cave
***Think not that i would EVER belittle Jesus being 100% God AND 100% man...i am simply relating to His 100% man side here...i am not God and have not much in common with that side of Jesus....except for that whole "i am in Christ, Christ is in God, Christ is in me, i have the Holy Spirit" thing...

Fear V. Love Pt. 1

in the battle of fear versus love, i cast my lots both ways...

somedays, i'm pushing for love, freedom, living in His Spirit of grace.

other days, i'm holding out for control.

and this control...of circumstances...of the way people think of me....of what happens in my life....

well, it's all dictated by this innate, underlying sense of fear. i'm afraid of what happens when i let go.


and the winner is....

i'm not sure yet.

TO BE CONTINUED....

p.s.

Hey guys!

so again, i'm having some computer problems with loading pics...BUT, if you look to the right column on my blog page, there's a link for 'my flickr photos'.


if you're so inclined, click on it and it'll take ya to a menagerie of pics..i took a few and my friend kendall took a few...

easy to detox at this altitude!

love ya!

a

detox, a personal soundtrack and an affinity to schizophrenia

i never realized my person comes complete with my own personal soundtrack!

it's funny...i'll wake up and have no music going on, then about lunch time, i'm humming (all in my brain of course) a tune of a pop song i haven't heard in weeks...

all the while, i can't figure out where the music is coming from!

in the 'normal' world, i'd listen really hard with my super-sonic hearing and quickly discern which cubicle or radio was projecting the music....

but now.

well, now i sometimes just resign myself to letting the song play out...or i'll intentionally change the station in my brain...

weird.

hard...

especially when a voice other than my own is a welcome thing....


i think it's all a part of the detox.

you know, detox. it's where all the bad gets sifted out of your system...makes you want all the good instead of craving the bad.

part of this 'detox' is cultivating a 'quiet, weaned' heart...Psalm 131 has been my go-to this week:

A Pilgrim Song
God, I'm not trying to rule the roost,
I don't want to be king of the mountain.
I haven't meddled where I have no business
or fantasized grandiose plans.

I've kept my feet on the ground,
I've cultivated a quiet heart.
Like a baby content in its mother's arms,

my soul is a baby content.

Wait, Israel, for God.
Wait with hope.
Hope now;
hope always!

So. that's what's happening in my world...trying to learn how to hear that whisper...i thought it was hard when there are so many voices outside.

i'm finding it's just as hard with so many voices inside...

i promise i'm not turning schizophrenic...at least i THINK i'm not turning schizo...

:)

thinking of so many of you this week...and praying His grace and favor as He pursues you and you pursue Him...wholeheartedly my friends! wholeheartedly!


annetta



p.s. this detox is almost as bad as a physical detox...less lemon and ginger though...