My Good News Is

My good news is that I am alive. I am here, experiencing the smells, tastes, and sights of a wonderful and complex world. My good news is that I can laugh. I can cry. I can smile. I can dance. My good news us a joy that cannot be taken away. My good news is laughter on my lips, a smile in my heart, a song in my ear. My good news is sunshine and flowers, the ocean, puppies playing, a gentle breeze. My good news is family. friends. SLU. Learning.

My good news is being in love. Dancing carefree. Laying in the sunshine. My good news is nature. Walking along a babbling brook, hiking to the top of a mountain. My good news is the smell of spring, the touch of the sun on my skin, the water swirling its hello beside me. My good news is closing my eyes and liking who I am and where I am going. My good news is coming home, and also coming back to SLU. My good news is the ability to choose to love every moment. My good news letting go and letting God. Loving people. My good news is the desire to never stop learning. My good news is curiosity for life. My good news is that I am alive. I am alive! I am oh-so-alive.

Things SLU

SLU (Saint Louis University) is an old sweatshirt. SLU is my comfortable pair of sandals, the ones that have formed perfectly to every groove of my feet. SLU is the smell of my house after I've been gone for 3 months. SLU is a hug from an old friend, a tingle in the pit of your stomach when you share a smile with a stranger. SLU is your favorite pair of jeans that fit jst right, soft and slightly worn from hundreds of washes. SLU is family. SLU is friends. SLU is experience. SLU is comfort, like a homecooked meal. SLU is 74 and sunny, even when it's 10 degrees outside. SLU welcomes me with the fountains, flowers, smiling faces. SLU is home away from home. 

Insignificant People

Topic from class: Who are the insignificant people in/around you?

As much as I hate it, the are a lot of people around me who I deem insignificant. And how dare I? Who am I, a small speck in the great sands of the universe, a short thread in the tapestry of life, to deem others insignificant? How dare I? Theirs is a life filled with hopes, dreams, heartache, troubles, joys, sorrows, just as mine.

And I wonder who I am insignificant for.

How many people see me without really looking, does anyone hear me and take the time to listen?

Often, or rather sometimes, I experience moments when I think about how insignificant I am in the Great Scheme of things. I'm just me. And sure, I help people, I love with wild abandon and seek to expand my horizon and give back some of this joy that overflows in my heart, but really, I'm just one. There are times when I think about how many people there are in the world, and I am just one. One who is privledged and one who is blessed, yet still one. And then I think, "But he loves me still. If the world were empty and I were the only one left, He still would have died for me." And my heart soars with the knowledge that I am significant. I am important! I am loved. 

And it's just me, here, living a life where I reach out to all the other significant people around me, and try to show them their own significance. 

A poem...

I hear

Many songs

rushing flowing ebbing

intricate layers

untold loss heartache woe

inexplicable joy

the sun greets me

and the wind asks to dance

the tulips are still sleeping but growing closer to waking

the ocean, hundreds of miles away,

roars in my ears, and I can almost taste it

eyes

bright cheerful alive

red itchy tired broken

crying sleeping

a bloody nose

winking down from a velvet blue sky

the moon reminds me of Big Band music

I waltz alone

for the poor are too tired

the broken too busy

picking up the pieces of their lives

and i am an actor

open

letting the emotions flow freely within

and i am a dancer

tiptoeing

a dance upon eggshells

and i am a singer

crying

my blues into a deaf audience

and i am a painter

fresh

depicting what I know, what I wish

and i am a child

bold

awed by the freshness and ingenuity of life

and i am an old woman

wise

missing the past, scared of change, loss

and i am a poet

alive

capturing images and feeding them to my heart

and i am you

and we are an audience

demanding others to act

but we are the actors

stuck

the dancers, hiding

the singer, mute

the painter, forgotten

the young, afraid

the old, silent

the poet, lost

waiting for opportunity to come find us

yet missing him when he arrives in an unexpected hat

and the tulips sleep

and the songs soar

and my heart beats

and i am alive

i am an actor

and i waltz alone

come, dance with me, with the wind

Hello, old friend

Wow, I haven't blogged in awhile. Not like I was so "committed" to this blog before. But that's all about to change. First, mainly because of James Canfield, my left half. He's wonderful, talented, funny, charming...the list goes on. Basically, we complete each other in the friendship realm. Anyway, he has started a blog (here's the link:) and it's fantastic and now I am inspired anew to come back to my own blog.

Another reason I am coming back to my old friend, this blog, is because I am taking the best class of my life, social justice, with Dr. Chmiel at SLU. It's my ultimate favorite class, hands down. I love it because we get to be real. The students all know each other's names (and many of us have never met before). We share life lessons, stories, reactions to things we read, and we write. We write in these lovely little composition books, and we can say whatever we want, because the comp books are for us. We look at important issues, like the war in Iraq, but we also share funny moments, times when we feel/see love. I would highly recommend it to anyone interested in social justice. Anyway, being in this class and writing in my notebook has re-awakened my love of writing. I'll probably post some things I write in that notebook. And I am okay if no one likes what I write, or cares about what I write, or thinks the things I write are trash. That's okay! Everyone is entitled to their own opinions. And I'm not writing for you (to be quite blunt). I'm writing for me. For the way it makes me feel to create. 

Beautiful Disaster

Beautiful Disaster

"She loves her mama's lemonade,

hates the sounds goodbyes make.

She prays one day she'll find someone to need her.

She swears that there's no difference between the lies and compliments

it's all the same if everybody leaves her. 

And every magazine tells her she's not good enough,

the pictures that she sees make her cry.

And she would change everything, everything just ask her.

Caught in the in-between, a beautiful disaster,

and she just needs someone to take her home.

She's giving boys what they want, tries to act so nonchalant,

afraid they'll see she's lost her direction.

she never stays the same for long, assuming that she'll get it wrong.

Perfect only in her imperfections.

She's not a drama queen, she doesn't wanna feel this way,

only seventeen, but tired.

She would would change everything for happy ever after.

Caught in the in-between, a beautiful disaster,

but she just needs someone to take her home.

cuz she's just the way the she is, but no ones told her that's ok.

But she just needs someone to take her home.

And she just needs someone to take her home."

This is one of my favorite songs. Not simply because it is beautiful, the melodies and harmonies swooping like a bird on an easy wind.

But because in a way, it is about all of humanity. For some reason, we all buy into the lies Satan feeds us. "I'm not good enough. I'll never be good enough. I'm not pretty enough, cool enough, smart enough, rich enough, popular enough...." The lies goes on, the media continues teaching them, society continues believing them. We are brainwashed into thinking beauty and worth come in a certain shape, size, clothing. Who said that was the truth? When did we allow Hollywood and the media to take control of our likes and dislikes, molding us all into thinking a certain package is all that will make us happy, the only way we can be accepted?

I am reading "Through Painted Deserts" by Donald Miller, and one conversation in the book about love and searching for the "person of your dreams" says: "I was just thinking about girls the other day and wondering, you know, why some girls get ignored and others get worshipped, and I really got this feeling in my chest like all of that wasn't true. Can't be true. Doesn't make sense. Like maybe if you can't love a girl who isn't perfect then you can't really love a girl who is. Not for real. Not unconditionally."

And it's true. We cannot love another if we can't love the "perfect" version of them. I also think we cannot love another until we learn to love ourselves...the broken, mangled mess of a person we are. The beautiful disaster of a person that we are. God loves you the way you are, unconditionally, no matter the brokenness or disaster, the lies or imperfections, the unworthy mess that you are.

You're just the way you are, and He says that's ok.

He just wants you to let Him take you home.

home church

This is an article I wrote for an online magazine called "Wrecked for the Ordinary."

It's awesome, check out the website! (www.wreckedfortheordinary.com/) They put 

up  new articles a week, which is a huge deal for a website/magazine. 

Anyway, here is the article. It created quite the stir...don't feel bad about questioning

things I write. Read away!

www.wreckedfortheordinary.com/index.asp?filename=church-at-home-is-it-real-fellowship

(for some reason, i can't copy and paste things onto this...sorry!)

first post!

When I was younger, my dad tried to explain why some of my English teachers didn't love my writing style.

He told me, "Erin, when you become a writer, then you can take poetic license. Until then, you have to play by the rules."

I did, mostly. But I find that I still cannot resist to write the way that comes naturally--by taking poetic license. Most of the time, teachers let it slide. Even in college, which surprised and pleased me.

Anyway, welcome to my first blog. Hopefully I'll be able to write eloquently, holding nothing back. with no fear of people's reactions. Maybe I'll even inspire someone...

We'll see.