Well That Sucked.

Today was one of those days where I said "Well that sucked" a lot. I'm just going to air my dirty laundry here for a second and make a list of the things that sucked today.

1. I got up late. 
2. Because I got up late, I didn't get to pack before I left the hotel this morning.
3. Mom came to get me before sales meeting started (which didn't suck), so I had to leave earlier and didn't get much for breakfast.
4. Mom and I packed my bags later very hurriedly. (This comes into play later.)
5. On a break this morning, I found out that a dear, dear friend passed away very, very unexpectedly on Thursday. 
6. I lost my pencil and had to do my homework in pencil so I had to go buy pencils. 
7. The rental car we had was not easy to see out of from the back and the two hour drive from Tulsa to Oklahoma City made me nauseous.
8. The security guy at the airport was a jerk.
9. The nausea from the car ride carried over to the plane ride and the turbulence didn't help.
10. Neither did the car ride.
11. I'm still nauseous.
12. The essay I just finished writing that was due tonight totally sucked. Probably one of the worst I've ever written.

I will not make a list of all the crap that sucked about today and leave it at that. So before I go to bed, I have to make a list equally as long of positive things.

1. Sales meeting was really fun and I learned SO MUCH!
2. We get to launch two lines in the next few months that I'm super excited to share with my salons!
3. I have some really incredible and really supportive friends!
4. Even though Bubba is gone, I got to have dinner with her a week and a half ago and the last thing I said to her before we got in our cars was "Love ya, Bubs!"
5. I'm home and I get to sleep in my own bed tonight!
6. I finally found coffee at the airport this evening!
7. The essay that was due tonight was a first draft, not a final, so I'll be able to go back and revise and rewrite before it gets graded!
8. I found some really cool meditative music this weekend that I've been playing before and while I study. It seems to be helping me stay focused!
9. I got a high B on the Psych test I took last night without studying and while traveling!
10. Wes left a welcome home note for us on the kitchen counter that made us all smile! AND he vacuumed! 
11. Despite the stress of it, I really am enjoying school!
12. This day is over and I can go to bed and start new tomorrow! 

Just Questions

A funny thing... My English book has been discussing the importance of a really good question. Tonight, I'm full of them. I've spent yesterday and today in a conference that's been put on by the Rocky Mountain Region of the United Church of Christ, called Congregations Alive. I went into the conference expecting to learn a lot of best practices, gain some new ideas for spiritual growth and leadership and meet a lot of people I've never had an opportunity to meet. What I've gotten are a whole lot of questions. And not the "how do we run our Sunday School" kind of questions. No. These are the "what is my purpose on this earth" questions, that have answers so complicated and different for each person that I may never figure them out.

A highlight of some of the things I've written down:

• Are the youth of this generation less sensitive to sacred or sensitive subject matters than the generations before them?
• One of the presenters suggested that our youth need to behave first, belong second and then believe. For this to work, it requires us to place community before theology. Do I agree that this is right or necessary or accurate? Why or why not?
• A keynote speaker this morning said "Change can happen when people believe it can happen and if they believe the effort is worth it." Are the changes we've talked about making worth it? Do we believe they can happen?
• How do we, as a faith community, encounter those who aren't part of our faith community in a way that they trust the story we want to share with them? CAN we encounter those who aren't a part of our faith community and help them trust the story we want to share with them?
• Are we using the right language for Spiritual Growth, Faith Formation, Christian Education... Does the language we're using reflect our values and model?
• Is it easier to love one another inside of a congregation? Why or why not?
• What is our church's love language?

I've done three workshops so far, with a fourth on the schedule for tomorrow. Yesterday, I started with Becoming A Youth Whisperer. We discussed the "dominant breeds" of teenagers and how we can find and address their needs, instead of trying to "fix" their dominances (the dramatic, the comedian, the victim, etc), among other things. In ConnectMORE, we talked about how the church continually responds to our changing culture. This morning's keynote, Marian Plant, used the image of a desert flooding after a drought to talk about how we create water flowing from our chancels, down our aisles and out the cracks beneath the doors into our communities. In Faith Formation, Christian Education or Other, we discussed how the use of language in the church affects what people expect and how they perceive faith formation/spiritual formation/Christian Education. In Reaching Those Disabilites: Both Cognitive and Physical, we discussed what we can do to be more inclusive of those who are differently-abled. 

Now do you see why I'm so overloaded? My mind is going a billion miles an hour. There is just SO much to process. I think this could take weeks... I'm also going to make a to-do list of things that I think we could benefit from doing or discussing as a church. Gah. So. Much. Information. 

I'm Leaving (Not) On A Jetplane!

And so it goes... Tomorrow I leave for my five-day break from the norm. Can I call it vacation? Probably not. Do I get to see a bunch of friends and learn a bunch of cool stuff about programs, leadership and resources within the church? Absolutely. Am I super duper excited about that? You bet. Will it be good to get away from here for a while? You know it will be. But getting to this point and getting ready to go has been super, super stressful.

I'm behind where I wanted to be on school (because I thought I could get everything but replies done for this week) before I left. I'm not behind, behind. I'll just have to work on school every night while I'm there... Unless I plan to stay up another five or six hours, which I don't plan to do. Although when I went in to do my math tonight, I was relieved that we've moved on to much easier stuff that makes tons more sense to me. I was having a hard time focusing on Sunday night and I'm kicking myself for it tonight. I finally have everything packed except the sweater that hang dries... Remind me again why I buy so many sweaters, since they all hang or flat dry?! And I needed to find and buy a brown shirt tonight. Let me tell you... Don't bother. They don't make brown shirts in the spring. You'll never find one.

Oh... And to top it all off, I'm pretty sure I'm coming down with something. Joy.

I'm so exhausted and so ready to have dinner with Bubba and Jeremy tomorrow night and then get out of here. It will be good to see Jer and his family this weekend, to spend time with Jenn, to get to know some of our church members better and to celebrate Joe and Inez' wedding on Saturday. But mostly it will be good to sleep. To get away from work and Greeley and all of it and just have a good time. That's what I'm most excited about. And to think... I come back on Sunday and do it all over again to go to sales meeting next weekend. That will be SO. MUCH. FUN.

NOT.

And anyone who knows me well knows how I love my shoes... I'm only taking two pair. 

Freewriting

Today, I had to do lots and lots of timed freewriting. We were given several statements and were to set a ten minute timer and write what we believed about each statement. Then, we were to reset the time and write what we doubted about each statement. Do you know what I discovered? I really suck at freewriting.

The assignment was designed less to see what you would say and more to make you keep writing, even when you felt like you had nothing left to say. You should see some of the things I wrote... They were ugly. Disorganized, messy, all over the place, only halfway logical and barely understandable. I read some other people's posts and they followed a logical train of thought and were decently organized... It drove me nuts!

Now I have to write this blog post to prove to myself that I don't always write like I did in those freewrites. And now I've proven that, so I'm going to bed. Goodnight.