Annnnd. I'm back. ?

I haven't posted in here in so long! Lots of reason and, simultaneously, not any really good reasons. It's true that I've been busy, but  I've neglected to write on here because I'm not sure anyone really reads it. It's nice to have things in digital format, but I have my own thoughts (more personal thoughts) penned on paper, with real ink, in tangible book-format as well. In this digital age, where technology keeps pushing us more and more toward everything-mobile, I find an actual journal, or diary, more preferable. I feel like .. maybe someday I will be able to hand a collection of thoughts to someone and share with them who I am that way. On the other hand, it would be easy to lose such a collection of theories, thoughts and dreams, so in this sense, a digital backup is good to have on hand.


I went to church for Lent and though we have already begun this season, I have yet to decide what it is that I will be giving up. I am excited though to figure this out soon, so I can partake in this faith-journey. I'm anticipating something really wonderful happening in the season of sacrifice (not that it's a reeeeeeeeeal sacrifice, you know?).


I've fasted a couple times in life. One time it was real and I knew not what I was doing, and my heart was in the right place, albeit completely naive, and God met me there and it was amazing. The second time I fasted, I was desperate for something, I liked to think it was for God, but my heart was in this space where .. I tried to recreate what I had done before, to produce the same results, and to no avail. I was so caught up in the fasting part of it .. in the doing .. that I sort of left the heart of God OUT of it. I guess I thought at the time that I just needed to do a few certain things for God to respond to me, the way He had before. God, of course, is not like that. God is not a genie .. He's not something that can be conjured up with a few tricks or a few tears. He's relational. and the first time I fasted it was about my heart, and really moving toward God and it felt like a sacrifice physically, emotionally, and mentally. The second time was just about results of the physical sacrifice .. I wasn't in it for the journey (though I wanted to be .. I just wasn't). I sort of knew this going in .. but I just didn't know how to connect to my faith again, so I attempted to do what I did before and formulas do not work .. God isn't a formula. Along that note, if you haven't read Donald Miller's, Searching for God Knows What, you should, because he talks about that very notion. 


This really isn't a well-formatted blog entry. I'm quickly writing now, but I would like to get back to documenting on here. Not sure if anyone benefits from me, aside from myself, as it helps me to clear my head. I can't give this up though! I've contemplated deleting all entries and starting over or just erasing them altogether, and I can't bring myself to do it. Not yet, at least.


It's 1:24a on Sunday morning. I really need to rest. Hopefully next entry will flow a little bit more readily.


Until next time,


Christi

The San Francisco Cutie

Met an awesome guy online and then met him in person this last week! He's amazing and I hope he sticks around for a while :) :) We hung out in SF and here are some photos from that trip. *4th photo down, courtesy (unbeknownst) of said Gentleman

Gavin Rossdale Said Hello TO ME!

 

I saw BUSH live in concert! It was fantastic! I got to be inside for the soundcheck, too! It was the most amazing thing: the only woman in the room, standing in the vast expanse of space that was the theatre, with about 20 audio, video and misc. crew behind me. Gavin even said hi to me after the show, during the meet and greet. I was eating a Nature Sweet granola bar at the time, and slobbering all over myself right about when it happened. Still so great. :)

Apple Picking!

Does anyone even read this anymore? ha, gosh. I haven't updated it in SO long. Here's the brief: today I went apple-picking with church and it was absolutely fantastic. It was definitely what I needed: to escape the City, even if only for a couple hours. It makes me realize how much NYC is removed from every other place, in that, you can be soo caught up living there; it really is a world unto its own. Sometimes I forget that there are others places OUTSIDE of this Place. The longer I stay, the easier to forget, it becomes.


Other than that –and this is a very short synopsis of what is going on with me lately– things are going well for me. I started going to this Foundations class at church, basically relearning foundational things about Christianity and faith, in general. This is proving to be very important and refreshing for me, at the moment; sometimes I feel like my faith and this Story that we're living, becomes trite to me. It's sort of like .. I have all this head knowledge (well, what I've retained) of God, but such a disconnect to any sort of personal relation to the Gospel. So, going back to the essentials and fundamental reasons why Christ being crucified is important and meaningful to me, personally, has been eye and heart-opening. This also comes at a good time for me, because I feel like I'm finally ready to go there, again, and this has taken a number of years, even though I've never stopped wanting it.


Okay, so if I have to explain the case for the Gospel, I would tell someone that: people are created for God and to be in constant, direct relation with Him. A long time ago, at some point, we "sinned." (Sin distorts out desires. We deeply long to be recognized and affirmed by other people. This is supposed to be fulfilled by God.) Sinning is the act of being out-of-joint with God; finding ways to meet our deepest desires without God; to break with the Source of life; to go against God's word. Before sin, humans weren't created to die. After sin entered, we experienced two types of death; bodily death and spiritual death. ..God ended up choosing a people that He would reconcile Himself through and those were the Israelites. Back in the day, the way to atone for sin was with blood: animals were utilized for this purpose, but an animal's blood is only good for so much .. it was temporary atonement. Along those same lines, when priests wanted to enter holy temples, they needed to be cleansed in order to approach God, so there were sacrifices and rituals that needed to be followed in order for this to be done. Move along forward in time and Jesus steps into the picture as Messiah. He tells the the world Caesar isn't God. He tells the Jews that He is the final atonement because He is perfectly good and free from sin. Essentially, Jesus takes a spiritual death unto Himself, for those who would believe Him to be Messiah, so that they will only experience a physical death (a spiritual death would mean separation from God, hell?) –and be reunited with God one day. He reconciles us to Himself; He's our bridge, if you will. Because He's God incarnate, and He paid the ultimate price, there's no more need for sacrifices and priests no longer have to cleanse themselves to approach God. It's through Jesus that we can approach God, directly, and it's through Jesus' death that God now dwells within us .. because our temples are now not buildings but our living bodies (that's why we're called to treat our bodies as holy).


I'm possibly not extremely great at detailing and explaining this all, here, now, but I'm sure I'll become better and better at this. I'm just excited to relearn things and to be able to put what I've learned together, in an understandable way, even just for me.


So, that's that. Aside from churchy things, work is going well. I'm really coming to a point where I've begun my countdown, I think. I want to put a time limit on this, soon and then move out and up, somewhere else. 


AND FINALLY. I'm going home in December to visit for a couple weeks and I'm stoked! I'll get to see friends and family and also: I have a very hot date with a musician, that I'm already nervous for. What to wear! What if I sound like an ass! I fear I'm jinxing myself. I'm so excited though; I hope I'll get to see an observatory, some museums, eat some food, visit some vistas, have a cocktail or two, hand-hold and have good conversation. Not necessarily in that order. This will be the first date all YEAR that I'll have actually wanted to go on. It's not often I meet someone I'm interested in, who's on the same page as I am, that's attractive and intelligent and actually nice. So, we'll see how it goes. If nothing else, I'll enjoy getting the chance to meet someone new and share a moment in time with another individual, my time uncompromised by other obligations. Should be kind of awesome. :)

Today.

This morning, outside my window. :)

Dan and Luke

It is waaay past my bedtime, but I want to quickly jot down the scripture I've read lately (randomly) that I've been praying about this week .. both of these are things that I have been wanting to work on and have been making concerted efforts to aim at being present in the moment, and remember God during the day and remember these things I've read to implement them into everyday life.


(I apologize for words that may make little sense. It IS 12:46 in the am.)


First: Daniel 6:10-12. Okay, this is less about the context of Daniel and more about the actions he carries out, faithfully during the day. Daniel prayed three times, at regular intervals and I read this and remembered that I used to make more time for God, because I was on a more regular schedule. I had my time in the morning and my time and night and I never rushed, and when I read this passage, I remembered that those were important times during the day and I needed and wanted with God and I must make time again, set aside, to converse with He.


Second: Luke 17 1-6. "If your brother sins, rebuke him and if he repents forgive him. If he sins against you seven times a day and seven times, repents, forgive him." I read this and thought affectionately about God. How good is he and how spoiled, bratty and bitchy I am toward all the niceties he's graced, me. If he can be so good, I should forgive others around me. I don't want to hold anything against anyone and at the moment, I don't believe I do. But my heart does and harbors things sometimes that I am not proud of. I don't want to jump on people for their wrongdoing. I want to love people. I don't want everythng to be about me. I don't want THIS to be about me, anymore. 


I'd write more but my eyelids are heavy. More another time. :) Nighty to you. 

Dancing! Not Fighting!

Ha, I seriously love Dave Grohl.