Mercy Me

When I went to Kenya, it was for such a smattering of different reasons, but I didn't realize that I was going to meet my heart there. For years it had dripped and ached with the desire to help. It'd gotten mad, fighting mad, plenty of times over how hard it is to reconcile ourselves with this world.

When I found my heart in the sky and laughter of that gorgeous country of God's, two things happened that made me positive of God's existence on earth.

1. Encoring my unsolicited solo performance of "Amazing Grace" with an entry in a Kenyan prayer book of "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For."

2. Meeting Mercy. I don't know how you can not give birth a child and still feel that you own some part of her, but it is possible. I want her to be provided for, appreciated, thriving in a way that even feels different than desiring that for a sibling. I have woken up in the middle of the night with an inkling that she was thinking of me.

For those of you who know me well, you know that Mercy has become part and parcel of that time. She reminds me of my heart, of my humanity, of how very little we have to do to change the world.

Josie recently sent me this picture from her July trip and it appears that she's becoming a confident little leader.

Glory and praise to God. If this is the only prayer he answers for awhile,

keep it up, ok?

Be loved. Be blessed.

I used to write that a lot as a closing line in emails, thanks to inspiration from an old college buddy.

I found it beautifully comforting to pass that along to my friends as a benediction. I felt that in our rushrushbusybusy work lives, it might be soothing to take a second and be loved before we jumped back in.

***

A few nights ago I called my voicemail at work to remind myself of a task. In my calm 9 p.m. voice, I told my future self to rest and take a minute to be thankful the next day. I uttered those words, "Be blessed. Be loved." By the following morning, I was already amped up and needed the reminder.

***

I hope that I still do things like this for my friends. If I haven't been lately, you deserve a group apology. I am sorry. It's been a selfish time, learning to be in love and start a new job. I am sometimes neglectful. I hope to work it out.

First step: don't miss chances for small benedictions.

Happy Wednesday all. Be blessed. Be love to someone who needs it today.

New Year, More Of

As someone who struggles with absolutes, I’m not really a fan of resolutions. A few years ago I heard someone mention that they just wanted to do more in the next year of what they were already loved or were good at.

Keep on doing what you already like? I can get behind that.

With that in mind, I hope that in 2008 I’ll:

- Love my job even more and start believing that I’ll be successful in June
- Keep learning how to love my boyfriend better
- Continue growing and cultivating my mind and passions
- Get more and more used to being settled in my skin
- Give time and energy to Soulfari Kenya
- Experience new music and culture
- Let God be God
- Keep on loving myself

A missive before the safari begins

Hi kiddos.

I apologize for the incredible lack of posting as of late, but this summer has been certifiably nuts.

As seems to be the case with me, life changes tend to come in big, sweeping movements. Maybe it's my flair for the dramatic, but when something is around the corner, you can bet it'll be a good story that sets me stumbling upon it.

The latest adventure in my life is a new career path. Starting at the end of this month, I'll be moving from the opera world and will deal with prima donnas of a more primal nature - I'll be the Development Events Coordinator in charge of Jazzoo for the Kansas City Zoo.

1. Jazzoo is this wicked cool event that raises serious money for the zoo each year, so that was a huge reason I took this job.
2. This will give me the development experience I'll need to run a not-for-profit someday. (Which is my new longterm dream.)
3. Lions, cheetahs, koalas and elephants at work everyday?

Ummm...no-brainer.

Still, though I've been thinking about a switch for a bit now, this opportunity moved SOOOOOO quickly. From interview to acceptance = 7 days. Just enough time to make your head spin. But in the thick of all this, I've been reminded of just how often God speaks to me this way. Too much time or room to think, and I'll whittle all the beauty out of something. Things moving too fast keeps me dependent on Him.

I've got about 8 days left at the opera, then I head to Florida with the family for some good, quality R&R before I move into my new digs over at the zoo. Literally. Like, nearby the sea lions and stuff. I can eat lunch with the zebras. (Hope they like hummus.)

Anyway, I'm beyond excited, a little nervous (since this is largely uncharted ground for me), and mostly immensely thankful for God's sweet provision. He's been pouring down surprises all over the place as of late and I'm feeling just a little bit like I'm His favorite. (I know, I know. Every person is His favorite.)

In the meantime, keep me in your prayers, swing by the zoo in August, and keep checking this space. I'm sure there'll be all sorts of interesting fodder to muse about soon enough!

"Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen." Ephesians 3:20-21

T-minus 10 days...

A month ago I started toying with the idea of canceling my cable. I hemmed and hawed, even came up with a list:

1. This could be bad for my career.
PR folk are supposed to know lots of stuff about lots of stuff ("or a little bit about a lot," for all you Moore family members out there). But really, this isn't a valid reason with all the newspaper and online coverage I see. So really, #1 is just a b.s. excuse for "I should probably know the latest E! news gossip straight from Ryan Seacrest's lip-glossed lips." (You just know he uses gloss.)

2. But what about educational TV?
Right. Because I'm watching a lot of that at 10 a.m. on a Saturday morning. (In case you're wondering, that's re-runs of 90210 on Soap Net.)

3. But I don't get sucked in to all the crap!
Despite the fact that I've just referenced E! News (and that I know to use the ! after the "E"), I spent 3 hours last Sunday watching America's Next Top Model. I felt really sh*tty about my body after that. Just like I've stopped reading high fashion magazines because I know how they make me feel, TV is full of really thin, really shallow people. What goes in feeds how we feel.

4 through....yeah. I got nothing. There's no time like the present, and whatnot.

So, I've decided that after The Sopranos finale, I'm gonna pull the cord. (A smoker picks a quit date, after all.)

As far as how long I'll hold out - I'm shooting for the duration of the summer. There are fields to roam through and friends to visit and neighborhoods to be explored. If there's an easy season to to do it, I figure this is it.

Just to be clear: this isn't some sort of soapboxy plea for all people to give up their TVs.

I've simply realized that this is a good deal for me right now. The TV has been too much of a companion. Hopefully this will lead me to grow more comfortable with silence, to rediscover old music when I can't take it anymore, and to get some fresh air when I'm claustrophobic.

Today's Album: Kicking Television - Wilco

A time for whittling down

I'm told that when the you have nothing to write about, the trick is to just write. I'm curious if that works the same way for blogging, because it would seem that I've had very little to blog about.

This used to be a place of great creative output. Some of the things I wrote were turbulent outbursts from a passionate place deep inside of me. A year ago I had all sorts of public thoughts. Diatribes, even. But it would seem that those days are long gone and I feel bad about that. I mean, there isn't much that's new for the few of you who faithfully check this site.

The funny thing is, though this place has been oddly quiet, I'm actually wrestling with my writing more than I've ever done before. I've been sharing very little of it with anyone and producing even less, but I've been tending to the fruit of my sowing - lovingly trimming branches, watering sections, seeing what good blossoms might be plucked.

Yesterday afternoon, I had a rather serendipitous meeting with a group of aspiring writers. I was sitting in the patio's catbird seat at Broadway Cafe when a nearby group caught my attention. I just happened to be reading the same instructional writing book as one of them (Anne Lamott's - Bird by Bird). This happy little coincidence led one of the members to invite me over to join their discussion group and ultimately, their writing club.

One of the guys asked each of us what we're looking for from the group. Some people want to be published (strangely, not me) or learn to create compelling characters (also, not me). When he asked me, without hesitation I said that I wanted focus my thoughts. I need to see if these abstract ideas make sense to someone else. I want to edit them down to something beautiful and tight and understandable.

I want to reap what I've sown wildly into the wind.

It should be no surprise that I lovelovelove the message in chapter 3 of Ecclesiastes (or the Byrd's "Turn, Turn,Turn" for the music fans in the crowd). There is a season for everything and that's beautiful for people like me who like to go 90 to nothing. I need separate times for reaping or sowing. For creativity or rest. For birth or death.

This is the beginning of my season of whittling, reaping, picking and cultivating.

Though this space may suffer for it, there is "a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them" and my pockets are full of pretty little rocks.

the eye of the beholder

“The faculty of creating is never given to us all by itself. It always goes hand in hand with the gift of observation. And the true creator may be recognized by his ability to find about him in the commonest and humblest thing, items worthy of note.” - Igor Stravinsky

There was a period of life where I painted furiously. Color dripped from my veins onto canvas. Ideas buzzed through my brain like caged bees, frenzied and incensed until their release.

Then all of a sudden, I don’t paint much.

Sometimes there is peace about it, but I do lament its absence. Has my creativity dried up? Am I done for? As one does when something vanishes, I searched for its original source. What had inspired me then? What was my state of mind?

When I began to paint, the source of creativity was largely a catharsis – the self-clearing of the dry brush surrounding an injured heart. When the space was clean, the process became self-renewing. I’d see a child walk by and would hold her in my heart until I returned home and could place her on paper. That creative spark inspired me to keep looking around me. It seemed that painting made me observe things differently - in chunks, as if I could freezeframe my existence and preserve it.

Why, Eureka! It seems that observation and a healthy sense of voyeurism were my impetus.
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Last night I stared at the paintings above my couch. Paintings I'd done to pay homage to the gift of Kenya and the people it encompassed. They made me want to try and catalog this murky season of my life - to separate the fused bits of this amalgamation that is my modern life.

As summer hastens his humid return to upon our fair city, I have confidence that color will drip from these hands once more. Patios make fantastic watchposts, and I’m planning on sitting in the catbird seat at McCoy’s as soon as possible. Won't you join me for a pint and some inspiration?

Today's soundtrack: Simple Things - Zero 7 - Simple Things (Bonus)

nib·ble

1 a : to bite gently b : to eat or chew in small bits
2 : to take away bit by bit

I haven't had the will to finish a book in quite some time (a result of last month's quest to take the pressure off). In the interim I haven't stopped reading, but I've been enjoying various papers, essays, poetry and short articles.

There’s a particular pleasure in this sort of literary nibbling that I forgot about. Wandering through 10 pages here and there feels like a quiet oasis in the middle of my over-thought days. It’s made me realize how easy it is to break our lives up into novel-sized proportions – each book a goal or project - all or nothing.

My actions have written many novels by:
-running an entire 5K
-going to Kenya
-working to change certain habits
-dating, not-dating, stepping into the gray-area, not-dating

With each completed manuscript, amazing things have become part of my story. Things are completed, direction is gained, and ink has dried.

But this sort of lengthy, focused existence with beginning, middle and end is not my life’s natural proclivity.

Like these poems and essays of varying length and substance, I’m made to be broken up into chunks. My existence is that of a born nibbler.

I like to know small parts of things. We even joke about it in my family - as my brother would say, “we know a little bit about a lot.”

It’s frustrating because there’s this unspoken societal taboo in America with regards to nibbling. We see potential in a child, foster it, and encourage them to excel. With time, they must choose between scat-singing and pirouetting.

Maybe it’s a bit of mid-twenties rebellion, but I think that choosing just sucks.

See, I like Nebraska Cornhusker football, Common, Kenyan skies, Red Zinfandel, talking to strangers, watching an opera, reading the paper, Wendell Berry, ballet dancing, making coffee in a French press, Newcastle, praying while in my car, black sharpies, crime and detective books, being frustrated while running, writing in my journal, buying shoes, eating cheese and bread for dinner, talking about God, putting on lip gloss, dancing around my apartment, hugging just about anyone, Aqua Teen Hunger Force, and peanut butter.

(And that’s just off the top of my head.)

These are all things I know about to varying degrees. I have nibbled and chomped down on them, sinking my teeth into all that makes up this special life. The list reads like that of a schizophrenic, but it is entirely me, through and through.

(chomp.)

On reconnecting

New Ally, meet Ally circa 1999.

“Well my, my, you felt awfully insecure, didn't you. And you shouldn't be. Not with that sweet jean shirt. Still, trust me…it will get easier. Or you’ll care less. Or something like that.”

Sometimes it’s good to reintroduce our newest selves to our past lives.

Last night I had a long talk with a friend from college. It was refreshing to slip back into the same lingo, euphemisms and habits. When I talked about how much I’ve changed, he got it. When I mentioned my difficulties or weaknesses, he knew them well.

It felt like finding an old UNI sweatshirt of mine. Maybe it isn’t quite as new and novel (though I did look good in purple and gold). Maybe I don’t like a lot of the memories that come along with it. But damn, it’s sure nice that it is mine. It’s fantastic that it doesn’t need to be worn-in.

This season of lent has involved quite a bit of remembering. I’ve spent time recognizing that it’s ok to not progress at certain things – to remind myself that there are remnants of my past self that have always been worthwhile, kind and good.

I mean, growth is good and all, but how do you build a house, even a rickety one, if you don’t start with the foundation?