the machete turned against me.

Just now--reading this book and thinking through these questions--I realize that I had such an opportunity last year in Oregon and I wasted it. They gave me mostly uncharted territory and a machete and I let myself be argued into compliance by So-and-so: figuring out what "they" wanted done and then half-heartedly and half-effectively doing it. I could have been cutting open the box. I could have been doing the unsanctioned thing. I could have been taking commission culture somewhere. But it will live instead a meek life as the lingo of the Conference administration. How sad. I hope one day that I can do something to change that.

And this--this!--is why I was so unhappy last year, so dissatisfied with my work. I wasn't doing what I was meant to do, what I wanted to do, probably not even what I was hired to do. They didn't need another secretary, they needed a change agent and I failed them. I listened to the wrong voice and I took the well-worn path, the path of caution and compliance. Why? Why did I let myself down and my church down that way? These thoughts are all discouraging, but I finally feel like I've made sense of it. I finally understand why I felt the way I did in Oregon. That took a while.

New Things (or, Chasing Kittens)

So I'm doing this thing where I step out of my (neatly organized and vacuumed) comfort zone and try things that I either have tried and didn't like or haven't tried before. So far, here's my list:

1. I ate eggs. Not big ones, but small ones; not boiled but scrambled; and mixed in with fried rice. Might not sound like a big deal, but I haven't eaten eggs in years. ('Cause I hate them.) But I just didn't look at my fork and it was fine!

2. I invited people over to my house. Yes, I invited other human beings to hang out with me at my house. Very easy for some people, but not for me. I'm a wimp. But I did it and it was fun and I'm glad they came over!

3. I actually CALLED someone and invited them to do something. This, again, may seem like such a simple thing to some people. But since you're reading this you must be a friend of mine. Have I ever called on the phone and invited you to do something with me? I didn't think so. (By the way, sorry about that! I'm a bad friend, I know...) That's because I never thought people would want to come. But I invited this person anyway. And she did wan to come and she came! And I'm glad I tried this new thing.

4. Fake nails. I know--is this really a new thing worth trying? Well, I've been a nail-biter since the tender age of 8, so I've never had long fingernails before. And yesterday I went to Chicago on a whim (spontaneity is also new) and also on a whim I got french-tipped fingernails. I cannot tell you how weird it feels. I kind of feel like I'm wearing claws. Even typing on this keyboard is difficult. BUT, even though they feel weird, they don't look too bad and Joshua likes them. Plus, trying something new is sometimes its own reward.

5. I cooked! Not only did I cook, I tried some pretty time-intensive recipes AND cooked several meals in one week, including orange-fennel salad and butternut squash and sage pizza. (No, it was actually good!)

6. I'm attempting to get people to call me "Kessia Reyne." I know, it's a big mountain to climb. A lot of people can't even pronounce Kessia, so what makes me think they'll get Kessia Reyne? (It's pronounced KESS'-ee-uh RAIN, for those who don't know.) Well, to be honest, they might not get it. They might mispronounce it and they might forget it and they might end up calling me Cassie in the end anyway. But it's okay. Kessia Reyne is my preferred name, so why not introduce myself that way? It's something new and it's okay if it doesn't work out.

Alright, so those are a few of my new things. What about you? Tried anything new lately? Maybe it's time to live life boldly!



Related posts: chasing lions & Caution! thrown to the wind

A slice of adventure

You may or may not know that Joshua and I just moved from Portland, Oregon to Michigan so I could start graduate school. Either way, now you know. And here is a little slice of our adventure...

I got to the airport on Sunday morning at about 7:00. My flight was at 7:59 and I only had four hours of sleep, so I wasn't keen on getting there any earlier than necessary. An hour should do it--this is PDX after all, and I had checked in electronically the night before. Well, there was a bit of a line to get our boarding passes and the agent was trying to have a conversation with two Asian men in front of us about business class or economy class, only their English wasn't very good and the agent was getting nowhere fast. Meanwhile Joshua and I wait patiently behind them. By the time I got to the front of the line, I wasn't too worried, except about the screen of the next available kiosk: it was green and I didn't want to go through the hassle of trying to get it to work just to find out that it was broken. So I hesitated for about 20 seconds or so, then decided to go for it. So I get up there and put in my credit card. Do I leave it in? Am I supposed to remove it quickly? I can't tell . . . the screen says nothing. I wait about 30 seconds and then pull the card out quickly. Oh! There it goes! That's what it needed.

Wait. What is this?

"It is too late to check in for this flight. Please see an attendant for assistance."

What? Too late?

I look at the screen. "7:15 a.m."

I look at the sign: "Check-in ends 45 minutes before takeoff."

. . . . My flight is at 7:59 . . . it's 7:15 . . . I am one minute past the deadline! It takes another minute to flag someone down to help me. The agent says, "What time is your flight?" I tell her. She looks at the screen, taps it with her long acrylic fingernail, and says, "Oh yeah, way too late." Yes, by this time it is 7:16. That is way too late? Are you kidding me?

So we're put on standby for an 11:15 flight and our luggage is sent on that flight to Chicago with a connection to South Bend (our final destination). But we don't make that flight either. So we're put on standby for the next flight at 1:45--that flight we DO make, but by the time we land in Chicago there are no more connecting flights to South Bend. So Josh's parents drive 2.5 hours to come get us in Chicago and then we have to drive another 2.5 hours to South Bend to pick up our luggage. Oh, did I mention that the South Bend airport closes its luggage service at 8:00 p.m.? We got there after 10:00, but went in anyway and convinced some guy to help us and give us our bags. Then it's another 30 minutes to Josh's parents' house.

And of course I keep thinking: What if those Asian guys had spoken English? What if that kiosk screen hadn't been green? What if it had told me to remove my card quickly? Would I have made my flight? 

I'll never know.

chasing lions

I try to live a little dangerously. Sometimes I don't wash my face before bed. Sometimes I let my tea steep a little too long. I don't always handwash my delicates.

Okay, so maybe that stuff's not too dangerous. But I've really relaxed over the years and tried to be a bit more bold with life. There are a few things I do that are a little risky (like walk to close to the edge of the trail when I'm hiking), but for the most part I live a safe life.

Mark Batterson wrote an article that challenged me in this area. (You can read it here.) He takes his inspiration from Benaiah, an obscure Old Testament character who did something outrageous: he ran into a lion and chased it into a pit on a snowy day, and he killed it. Wow. So Batterson challenges the reader to live boldly and stop counting on holiness by subtraction (not doing this and not doing that) and to start chasing after big things for God.

But I have a problem with this.

I was six years old and on a trip to the skating rink with my family. As I skated in that counter-clockwise circle over and over again and I began to be less and less happy because I knew I was a scared-y cat. I was afraid to use the toe stop. I was afraid that I would be catapulted forward and injured. And embarrassed. And I don't like injury or embarrassment.

It took a couple laps of self-talk. "Kessia, don't be a wimp. Just do it. Just use the toe stop. Do it."

So I did. Just after I rounded the corner, I tipped my right skate down and stuck that toe stop into the floor. You can imagine what happened next. I catapulted forward and injured myself. In fact, the toe stop incident threw me headlong into the skate rink wall. After my skull bounced off the wall, I fell back, directly onto my tailbone. This initiated sudden and intense pain throughout my body and also led to back pain for about ten years of my childhood and youth. The only good thing about it was that it hurt so bad that I wasn't at all embarrassed by the scream I let out (that also cleared the rink).

So I think that confirmed in me whatever natural tendencies I have to be a cautious woman. I don't want to chase lions, although I wouldn't mind reading about the success and failure rates of various strategies for chasing lions, or watching a documentary on chasing lions, or even viewing stuffed lions in a museum honoring the great lion chasers of history. But me? chasing one? into a pit? on a snowy day? Too rich for my blood.

But I don't want to be a wimp. I think it's time to put on my running shoes.

Related: chasing kittens & Caution! thrown to the wind