Life Can Change With A Breath

It has been thirteen years since it happened. April 20, 1999 is a day that has gone down in history. Some know the date but slowly it’s being forgotten. For me, it will always be a date I will remember.



I was eleven and in the 5th grade. I remember that I was going to daycare when school let out which means that I would go to the front porch and wait until one of the daycare staff members came and got me. But this day we didn’t go to the porch. We stayed downstairs and we were told we would be picked up there. Odd. But I continued to play with my friends. When we were picked up we went through the building rather than the faster way outside. We were told to stay quiet as possible and we were ushered into the main room. There we had a movie put on in a low sound and all the lights were turned off. We never watched movies unless it was raining and even then it was a rarity. I asked the other kids around me what was going on. One significantly younger than me told me something bad had happened in another school and they turned off the lights because they didn’t want the bad guys to come in through them. Ridiculous and childish and I recognized that but still my blood went cold. Something was terribly wrong.



When my mom came and picked me up. She had been crying and she had to explain to me that when we went home things would be different. As we turned the corner onto Quincy headed towards our home I saw the helicopters, I saw the police cars, and I saw the media. I turned on the TV and my mom and I sat in silence as images of students flinging themselves from windows and others crying filled the screen. There was a shooting down the street at Columbine High School. The high school that all the neighborhood kids went to, the high school my cousin had talked about wanting to go to. I cried with her and tried to imagine what it was like. As I brushed my teeth that night an eerie light shown through our bathroom window… it was small and I know in hindsight it is brighter then what it actually was. But to me the lights of the school staying on well past the time students would have left could have been a spotlight directed straight at me. I tried to sleep but the nightmares came, even at eleven I thought I had too much pride to sleep in mom and dad’s bed… but that night pride had gone and it remained gone for weeks afterwards. As I snuggled close to my mom a loud bang shook the community, it was the final bomb going off from the car in the parking lot. With that the shooting had ended but the rattling that shook us would never truly leave.



The next day was a blur, we didn’t have school, and so I went to my grandma’s house to spend it with my cousin. I was glued to the TV, she begged me to go outside and play but I told her that these were my neighbors and that was my neighborhood. That night we went to Clement Park and looked at the tents that had been set up, tents for each of the students. Personalized with what they loved. Cars lined the grass, cars with flowers, stuffed animals, letters, and the emptiness of never having their rightful owner drive them again. We all cried. We didn’t know each other but in that moment we all did. Going to McDonald’s changed… with our meals they handed out stickers. Stickers that said “we are all columbine” the slogan for the tragedy to unite us…a slogan that has become a part of me. A part of me will always be with Columbine.



Some wonder why it changed me so much. I didn’t know anyone personally that was killed, although now I feel like I did with some of them. I didn’t even know anyone that was shot. My neighbor was but I haven’t even said two words to him. And yet if I had to pinpoint a life changing day this is one of the first ones that come to mind. To me this is the day that 15 people were killed and along with their deaths was the death of my innocence. Not many can pinpoint that exact moment they grew up the most, the moment where barbies began to fade, the moment where the maturity of knowing how big the world is and how you are not the center of it, and the moment when you realize that beautiful world you live in is different than what you had seen while chasing the butterflies. I can.



Over the next couple weeks more and more information came out about the killers. They were two boys who were “teased” they were members of the trench coat mafia, they watched the “matrix” and that’s where they got the idea to hide guns under their coats, they listened to marylin Manson. The boys worked at black jack, the one down the street from me and one that I walked past every single day while going to school my junior and senior year. They also worked at the firework stand up the street and that is where they got all of their gunpowder. That was the part that hit home the most. I remembered them. We had bought our fireworks from them. I don’t know why I would remember them almost a full year later but I did and I still see their faces in that tent. They looked ordinary, they were just two boys who were working there to earn more money, I thought. Never would you have guessed they would cause so much chaos and so much heartache. And that is when it hit me that the bad guys were not the masked images we saw on TV, they were not the villains of the Disney movies, the bad guys were normal people. The bad guys were us. This thought shook me to my core and I retreated into myself. If these two boys could be bad, I told myself, then I could be bad. I refused to listen to Marylin Manson ever, still do not. I still have not watched the Matrix. Years later I know that these were not the cause of the evil that came out of them. And now we realize that all of these things were not even true. However, at the time it didn’t matter to me. They were true then and I didn’t want to become evil. I began to think of different ways people could be killed, a morbid thought for an eleven year old. However, I was convinced that I could become evil like the hulk would transform. I wouldn’t see it.



After weeks of talking with my parents I realize that it was ridiculous but my innocence was still loss in the halls of Columbine High School. It has been 13 years, I have graduated from high school and college. My life has taken me from Colorado and to Florida. Yet, not a week passes that, that school doesn’t come to mind. Not a month passes where I don’t wonder how our world and my world would have been different if those boys had been taken by the light instead of the darkness. One of my favorite movie quotes (yes, another one) is from the movie, “Where the Heart Is”. Ashley Judd asks Natalie Portman what to tell her kids in regards to the man that did horrific things to them, a man they trusted, “You tell them that our lives can change with every breath we take… and tell ‘em to hold on like hell to what they’ve got. You tell them we’ve got meanness in us, but we’ve got goodness in us too. And the only thing worth living for is the good. And that’s why we’ve got to make sure to pass it on.” Eric Harris and Dylan Kleabold took a lot that day, but out of smoke rose goodness. Rachel Scott’s incredible attitude and heart have lived on through a movement that her family continues on, so many of the students had passions and dreams that were so many years beyond themselves and with that they have lived years beyond themselves. We all have meanness in us but we have good too. Which will you choose to show today? We are all Columbine. I will always be with Columbine.

Books

I love books. There is nothing more that I enjoy doing then going to a book store when I have a bad day. I walk in and leave my cell phone in the car. Instantly the smell hits you. The smell of coffee from the café, the smell of fresh paper, and the smell of escape. You look around and people line the tables with their computers and different novels. Headphones are in every ear and a coffee cup in front of every person. No one speaks to each other but you feel similar and you feel like you belong.



I walk the rows and brush my fingers on the books. I touch the new spines and feel my problems fall into their pages. In here the loans, the bills, the fights, the work schedule, all of it fades away. Instead I begin to be engulfed by the financial situation of Oliver Twist, I become a member of the society in 1984, I battle with the Bronte sisters on why their books are so dark and which one really is the better writer. I listen to Nick tell me all about this bizarre man named Gatsby and I sit with Jane Austin and together; her and I become entranced by a happy ending she didn’t get and one that I so often question I will.



Books are so much more then the stories written on the page. They are the stories written in between the pages.

The stories of the authors that poured years into them, along with their hearts, minds, and sometimes sanity. They are the stories of those who have read them before me. The lives that were changed because of them. The Feminist movement being changed by the Feminine Mystique, finally allowing women to be understood and heard in a way they didn’t even know they felt. The Color Purple and The Help allowing us to see a glimpse into the old way of things. Books are a way for us to look into the past as well as imagine a future that falls short after the turn of the page. They allow us to escape reality and run away to Narnia, or Hogwarts.

Books are our stories, they capture the moments in our lives as we read them. They can touch us in the most unexpected ways. They can change us without us realizing it. Allow yourselves to be taken over and transformed.

If only I had an enemy as big as my apathy

On June 5, 2002 America was shaken by a story that was flooding the news. A 14 year old girl was abducted straight out of her bed. Nine months later Elizabeth Smart was found alive in the custody of her abductors badly shaken and with stories most wish to not hear. Viewers were glued to the tv trying to imagine what it was like to be taken out of a place we normally feel so safe. Our homes, our beds, it's where we feel most comfortable. A bad breakup? We go to our beds. Sick? We go to our beds. How could this happen to a little girl. America wanted to punish who had taken her. The world wanted justice.
Now imagine with me that there are over a 100,000 children taken out of their beds just like Elizabeth but instead of being taken and found alive 9 months later they are taken and never seen again. They are forced to pick up guns and join a cause they never really understood... at 6 years old what cause do you really understand? Imagine, a little girl being continuously raped by a group of men and passed around like a rag doll. Now imagine that this is going on for 45 years and you finally have a glimpse of the horror of what has been going on in Uganda.
Kony 2012. It's all over the internet... the video, posters, pictures, arguments, it's the latest "charlie bit my finger" video. With 79 million views in the last week I think it's an understatement to say it's gone viral. However, sadly unlike charlie with this video comes scrutiny. Invisible Children is an organization that has been around since 2003 when a group of young people went to Uganda to discover the horror that was occurring with the LRA and it's ring leader Joseph Kony. The truth of the matter is that over the past 45 years Kony has been the tyrant that haunts our dreams. The LRA is the longest continuing rebel force in existence. Children have been ripped out of their homes and the only way they have to avoid it is to continuously move and try to become... invisible. And to the world they were just that they were the invisible children of Africa. No one had any idea this was going on. While I was growing up with my barbies and my brother was running around playing "battle" with his friends, boys his age were living it and little girls my age were the dolls.
In the first video the boys introduced us to Jacob. A boy who wanted to grow up and be a lawyer but didn't have the money to go to school. Then he told us the story of his brother, who was taken by the LRA and killed. My heart broke for it. I remember watching "Band of Brothers" and the episode "Why we fight" and thinking how could the people in the city around the concentration camp smell that, hear the cries, and see what was going on and do nothing? We try to blame it on ignorance. "It was a different time" "we had no idea what was going on, on this side of the world." Ok. What's our excuse now?
The criticisms that come with "invisible children" and Kony 2012 are numerous. Many argue that the organization only donates 35% of it's profits to the actual organization. A fact that my research has sadly confirmed. Many argue that we have our own problems in America to deal with and we shouldn't be fighting other's battles. An argument that makes me more sad then any other. Have we fallen so far from our Christian roots that this is what we believe? That we are divided by our location rather then united by our humanity? I guess this could be the argument for the Holocaust as well, they are the Jews in other countries... let's fight our war and leave them for others. Millions are dying but they are not our millions. Some argue that nothing can be done to stop him.
Here is what it comes down to. Will donating money to "Invisible Children" do anything? Apparently not as much as you would hope. Should you do it anyway? If this is something you are passionate about then yes. You are donating it in hopes that this will be donated to them. Will it go to them? Who knows? Who knows where our money ever goes? It's not ours to start of with. Everything is God's. I personally, will probably not be donating money towards this organization because it bothers me but I don't condemn those who do. It IS our battle because our battle is stop injustice. Our battle is to fight for those who cannot fight for themselves... but along with that we need to understand that we are not the knights in shining armor to the poor helpless African people. History has proven that African's are anything but helpless, they are fully capable people. However, similar to other genocide's it's not about playing hero's, it's about doing what is right.
Can we stop him? Can I stop him? Yes. Am I just one person, yes... but to quote Finding Neverland "'He can't climb that mountain, he's just a man', or 'That's not a diamond, it's just a rock.' Just." We may be just one but just one voice combined with others can make a beautiful choir. One person armed with a shofar and a cause can tear down walls with God on our side.
We can't be ignorant to think that capturing Joseph Kony will stop this or the LRA. He is one man and this is an organization and a rebel group that is far beyond him. But stopping him is the start. And stopping him comes with making him known and raising awareness on what is going on.

This video may be annoying you... it may frusterate you to no end the ignorance of some thinking that buying a 30 dollar kit will end a war that is nearly 50 years old and stretches to complications we will never fully understand. However, it is forcing a generation that is all about texting, reality tv shows, partying, social media, and their dreams to look beyond themselves. I am seeing my generation join together for a cause. And despite every argument I cannot find a fault in that.
You are one person, but you are one person with a voice. Use it. Don't go buy the 30 dollar kit and sneak out in the middle of the night on April 20th and join others in "blanketing" the city with Kony if it isn't something you agree with. But do not condemn those who want to fight injustice and play their part. Click share on the Kony 2012 video... it's raising awareness... it's forcing us to look beyond ourselves and it takes two seconds. Do not let apathy be our biggest enemy. So many battles have to be fought and so many are suffering and it can often be overwhelming but we can do it... with strength not our own.

Au revoir Paris, Bounjour WDW

So for anyone who has talked to me in the last year then you would know that I have wanted to study abroad. And for anyone who has known me would know that it just hasn't worked out. Either with loans, well always with loans, and then family issues and timing etc etc etc. Finally I found a program that I was going to go to Paris with and postponed it to do it this next semester. I was somewhat excited, but a little apprehensive. I was excited to go to Paris but really apprehensive about the money, and a little scared that I wasn't as excited as I thought I would be. I kind of began thinking about something I had dreamed of since I was in high school, the Disney college program. Basically it is doing free labor at the disney parks for the exchange of an in with the company. To some it sounds awful but to me it always sounded incredible. As I began to talk to people about it they all told me I could work for disney for the rest of my life, I should go to Paris now. I listened and they were right, I could. So I started preparing for Paris and pushed Disney somewhat out of my mind. When I say I pushed Disney out of my mind this is not pushing out the fact that I would be going to Disneyland Paris.
Then one night I received an email that the college program was now open to applicants. I forgot about it for a couple weeks and then late one night I opened up the Epresentation. The cheesiness, the somewhat awful acting, it was so AMAZING to me! I got so excited I did a weird dance, slash run thing in my room (wanting so badly to tell someone but remembering that all of my family was asleep). Then I made the decision to apply, but the only trick is that I wasn't going to tell people. I told two friends who had known me for more then five years and my family. I wanted this to be something for me, a decision that I made completely without outside influences. I figured I could apply and then I would just choose Paris or Disney. So I applied and made it past the first cut and scheduled my phone interview. As I talked to Jubilee about it I begged her to tell me what I should choose (completely breaking on the whole "make my own decision" thing). But as a true friend she wouldn't tell me.
The next day as I was freaking out about my interview and somewhat daydreaming I decided to look at houses in Orlando. Completely irrational and ridiculous but I was imagining getting a career out there eventually and moving for good. Then I found it. The PERFECT house built in the 30's wrap around porch, hard wood floors, clawed foot bathtubs... incredible. And it was only 31,000. Going to Paris would cost 25,000. I could buy a house, A HOUSE... like one to live in forever! For nearly the price of going to Paris for 5 months. That just confirmed it. Jubilee pointed out the day before that I had really already made my choice and she knew I would choose Disney but now I was sure. This is something I wanted to do, and I know alot of people won't understand wanting to go work in the hot sun for nearly nothing over going and sipping coffee in Paris but it has been my dream since I was a little girl. And I trust that God will have a hand in this and eventually I will make it to Paris. Shoot, maybe at Disneyland Paris!
Now the trick was getting in. I read that 30,000 apply every semester and they only take 6,000. Odds were not really that good. I prepared 8 pages worth of notes for the interview (including one that kept saying SMILE!!!). I felt confident after it was through and prepared to wait. Some people were waiting 4 weeks! Others were pended and having to wait until December. I was freaking out because I had to give an answer to Paris if I was coming or not. After 5 days I was told I was in for Attractions. It was in my top three and I found out faster then anyone else I had heard. I felt very honored and excited to know so quickly. I am completely confident that this is what I want. So now to a new adventure. Orlando... here I come!! Ready to start my new life!

Only Connect

Do you ever walk down a busy street or into a busy room and feel completely alone? Well, if you answered no then you must be Snow White... or lying. There are times when I can be in a room full of my friends and yet they could be speaking yiddish and I wouldn't be able to communicate any better with them. This flaw is a fault neither my own or theirs but rather a flaw in the innate being of humanity... I believe. Because it is only in this loneliness that reach up or we reach over. I think that in these rare moments of aloneness we seek familiarity in what we can. Yesterday, I was reading a book that I had just found at a thrift store, in the back written in pencil was a quote by Henry Thorough quote

"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived."

In a strange way this made me feel completely connected to a stranger. I imagine that this quote is in the back of the book because they couldn't find paper since it is broken up, however I felt connected. Someone out there could be feeling how I feel. They could be searching for more. To some this seems like a silly thought, but for a few of you out there you know what I am talking about. It happens in the random moments of life. It can be when you are rocking out in your car to look over and see the person next to you rocking out to the same song, sitting on an airplane and looking over to see that you are reading the same book as your neighbor, or seeing someone else who is wearing TOMS. I look at these opportunities as a way to not only realize how connected I am to everyone but rather how this came to be. Look for joys in the little things and for rare moments remember that you are not alone. We struggle and stride through each day... with strength not our own.

Ireland

How do you begin to describe something that completely changes your life? How do you begin to describe this when it happened in one week? My week in Wicklow was incredible, I knew it would be simply because it would be in Ireland. I never imagined how much God would use this trip. First off, I was terrified. I have never gone on a trip before without having at least one of my friends there with me. I actually ran from my friends to sign up for this trip so I could do something on my own. I began to regret that decision the night before I left. It seemed as though everyone else on my team was bonding and I was the odd man out. But regardless, I trudged on and arrived at the airport the next day. My fears didn't really subside until we got to Ireland. It was like as soon as I breathed in the air that even seemed to have an Irish smell to it, that I finally saw the hand of God work instantly. I began to bond with my team and I instantly bonded with many of the Irish. My roommate ended up being one of the girls that I never thought I would become friends with, not in a hundred years. We hang out with different sides of the track at school, sides that will really unlikely ever mix. I loved living with her and it was so easy to open up to her and discuss everything I had dealt with and where I was. It was also beautiful hearing about where she had been and where she was, and what I could look forward to from her journey.
If I had to choose one word to choose for this trip it would be the word CONNECT. From the first cultural blunder of asking the Irish what color pants they were wearing (which means underwear there) to the tears I cried when having to say goodbye we instantly bonded all around. I have never seen the body of Christ connect so quickly and work so efficiently. Here we were, fixing up a town that stood in the shadow of a church that has seen more years then our country. We spoke different words and yet we all worshiped the same God. The true beauty of this is indescribable. I don't know if you have ever sat and talked with someone who you would think has nothing in common with you and yet realize that there is little you have NOT in common. That is a fraction of what it is like to connect with a body of people in another country.
The weird thing about this country is that it is such a Christ-deprived nation and yet I couldn't help but think that if the churches here had the same amount of passion and love then truly I wouldn't feel so different in my beliefs a lot of the time. I finally saw a glimpse of the church as it was supposed to be. This isn't to say that I think the church in Red Cross to be a beacon of heavenly light with no flaws, but rather in a week I saw the body of Christ at work in a way that showed His love as a testimony rather then the obnoxious Tel-evangelists that sadly represent such a stereotypical view of religion that many people have. In a week I was able to experience MY God, one that, to be honest, I haven't seen in a while, and one that I missed. A God is less about words and more about actions. Less about condemning and more about loving. One that is less about standing and judging but more about working and living.
So I cried when I had to leave Ireland. I knew I would miss the rolling green hills, the lush overgrown hedges, the simplicity of frolicking through fields with my new CCU friends who I knew I wouldn't really talk to as soon as we hit Colorado. I would miss coming home to see two little Irish girls run into my arms, I would miss the indescribably amazing young people that I had the honor to play, work and joke with, the loving hearts of the people who opened there homes to us, and I would miss the laid back fun culture. But I knew I would also miss this beautiful glimpse of paradise, of working hand in hand with people who were strangers a day before who I saw MY God working through. So as I come back I continue to hope that God will continue to work with me, in me, and through me. With Strength not my own. Cheers!!

What is faith?

This is a question that I have had to struggle with this last year. What does it look like to have a full relationship and to walk by faith? How do I continue to live my life while facing disappointments, heartbreaks, and struggles all while keeping in mind the ever so faithful One who has my best interest. Often times I find myself looking up and questioning how much my life is on the track it is supposed to be on. I question that I will end up where I am meant to be, that I will end up with who I am meant to be, that I will define things how I should. 

When I think of what faith is, a line of a novel comes to mind. It is a line that touched me so intensely at the time of me reading it, and it came at a "cross roads" in my life. It is from the book Redeeming Love, a book by a Christian author that I believe finally captures the true heart of MY God, the loving, forgiving One that I long to trust and put my faith in. In it, the character of Michael is faced with the challenge of his struggling ex-prostitute wife who he rescued and learned to love, and allowed her to love him. She is about to run yet again from the fear of the love that he has shown to her broken spirit. He knows that if he holds on to her then the person she is meant to be will never come to be, but letting her go seems like a task that will break him. Finally, after he comes to this conclusion that he loves her and needs her to be the women she could truly be, he decides to let go. He looks up to the heavens and he asks God, "If I give her to you will you give her back?" No answer came. This is the epitome of my faith, of my... life. Blind faith. It would be easy for me to hand over my career aspirations knowing that when I got it back I would be a big movie producer for movies that will change people's lives. It would be easy getting over breakups and heartaches if I knew that the man I was meant to marry would be more then what I would imagine. It would be easy to hand over the dreams of traveling if I knew where I would go, if I knew that I would adopt all the children I want to. But life is not easy and faith is never meant to be easy, if it was easy then it would be something different. 

Every-time I read Redeeming Love something hits me differently. When I read it a year ago, life was changing and this is the part that hit me. If I hand my heart to someone that I have dedicated my life to who I know is the only One who has the power to handle it carefully, I no longer have control over it. I handed over something a year ago and it took another year for me to learn that the broken pieces I thought I was picking up from it was just a task on becoming the woman I truly want to be rather then a fault of the only true loving One in my life. 

With this, as I feel the shift of summer coming I feel a change coming. A deep breath and faith is the only way to step into the future that seems so blurry and unkown. I guess I will just have to face it... with strength not my own.