the weekend

Pretty stellar weekend.  Here's a little peak..

Is it worth it: Part Two

Last week I wrote a post on taking a risk and deciding to love with our whole hearts.  It came from getting a chance to hear the Gospel in a different way.  As part of a Homily.  Well, the words from the Homily are still sticking with me.  So here are some more thoughts.

The preacher used a story from one of my all time favorite authors, Henri Nouwen.  He told the story of twins in a womb.  There is a lot more to it, but I will be brief.  A brother and sister are in a womb and the brother kept mentioning there being more than their current situation.  The sister isn't buying it.  The brother mentions something about a life squeeze.  He mentions that they are unpleasant and painful.  He says he thinks the squeezes are to get us ready.  To get us ready for another place.  A better place. (Birth)

I've been thinking about this story a lot and it has been on my mind constantly.  Life squeezes.  They are not pleasant.  They hurt.  Honestly- they flat out suck and I even hate them at the time.  I would never voluntarily want one.  It is easy to become hopeless and doubtful.  I have been there.  More often than I would like to admit.  It is almost worse to watch someone else go through it.  But, I keep coming back to the same thought.  These squeezes, hurts, losses- they aren't for nothing.  They can't be.  Because we choose to love, we also choose to lose.  But, we choose life.  Even in death.  I think it is far greater to love than to not.  Even if those that we love are lost, we still got the chance to love them.  And we got to be loved by them.  There is not one thing that is greater in relationship (in my opinion).  It has taken me a very, very long time to even begin to write these words.  I don't even always believe them myself, but eventually I am redirected to where this all comes from.  And to me loving is the only option we have.  We have these life squeezes because we choose to love.  We take a risk with our hearts and our minds.  We give our selves.  In love, I think there is hope.  A real hope.  A hope that grows us in faith.  A hope that gives us a peace.  A peace that will somehow surpass the times that we have no idea what the hell is actually going on or what we are supposed to do.  Or the times where we want to just quit.  A hope that leads and encourages us to love.  I am not talking a superficial, shallow love.  I am talking about a life changing love.  A love that is greater than loss.  A love that survives death.   This love gets us ready.  It shows us a glimpse of the Kingdom.  A far better place.  Where we will see Him face to face.  It is a love that I or you should not trade for anything in the world.  It is a love that is MORE THAN WORTH IT.  FYI- I do not say this lightly.  It is just what I have been thinking on today.  Thanks for reading.

Some Monday inspiration

People of the gym: Naked

I can handle most things.  Or, if I can't, I just pretend I can and then evacuate whatever horrible situation it is that I am trying to handle.  It usually works.  Until yesterday.  Yesterday I had the unfortunate luck of wanting to just die on the spot.  This may sound dramatic, but I, Sarah Sass, have never been a huge fan of casual nakedness.  And I am pretty sure I will never be on the walk around in public places while letting it all hang out train.  Pretty sure I will purchase no ticket for that.  Let me explain.

Yesterday I was walking into the gym locker room and was headed for a locker.  A nice safe locker in the corner.  Away from all of the people.  As I rounded the corner I saw two butt cheeks.  Just staring right at me.  I mean, come one.  It was way too early to be greeted with cheeks before I've even had my coffee.  Especially a strangers cheeks. ( For some reason maybe I would have been more receptive if I had known the cheeks, but actually I'm not sure..)  I'm kind of caught off guard.  I don't want to look at the cheeks, but I don't want to make eye contact either.  Tough situation.  I had a dash of inner panic. Wasn't sure what to do.  So I made awkward eye contact.  So awkward that I think the girl thought I was looking at her butt...  Good lord.  Now I feel like the bad one.  Hello??  I am fully clothed and I feel bad.  What the junk?  So I proceeded to my locker.  Awkwardly pretending I was listening to music.  Unfortunately naked lady was applying her deodorant right behind me..  I turned around only to realize that she was now wearing some clothes.  Well, I wouldn't call it clothes.  It was a thong.  Let me be the first to say that those do not supply the most coverage one would like.  Uggg.  Great, now I have a thong walking in front of me.  Not awesome.  Where are you supposed to even point your eyes when you have a neon thong in front of you??  I finally made it out of there and on to exercise.

Afterwards I made my way back into the locker room to shower.  Once again, fate had it's way with me.  I went to my little section to find more nakedness.  Worse nakedness than before.  This lady must have just been air drying or something.  She was standing in the middle of the lockers straight up naked.  I mean, I saw things that I never wanted to see.  How do you even pretend not to notice??  I may have to practice this because I am horrible at it.  I probably turned bright read or averted my eyes so blatantly.  I walked by and hit my shin on the bench and frantically dropped the f bomb by accident.  Only to have her turn around and look at me.  Full frontal.  Terrible mistake.  (I'm not saying she looked bad by any means.  I just don't enjoy being 2 feet from someone's boobs.) (Just saying).  I could not for the life of me get my combo lock to work.  My hands were all shaky because I was having inner panic.  The lady was like 1 foot from me.  She was patting baby powder everywhere...  See what I'm seeing here??  I kept hearing pat pat pat..  I could see the mist from the powder from the corner of my eye.  She was blocking where I put my iPhone so I had to awkwardly scoot around her.  I was petrified we would touch...  Good lord.  I was dying.  I am the person who takes all of their shiz into the shower and changes in there.  No nakedness over here.  I don't care if I was looking like a Victoria Secret model.  I will not go prancing around the ladies room letting it all hang out, traumatizing innocent 28 year olds...  Finally I made it to the showers.  I made sure to take a long ass shower so naked lady would have made her dismount by the time I emerged from the stall.  Thankfully, when I got out, fully clothed women were in there doing their makeup.  Thank God.  I survived another day.  (Hope I did not offend you)

Don't let it all hang out,
SRS

Thoughts from Gryffindor tower

I heard something really cool slash interesting the other day.  It's a quote from Graham Cooke (whom I love). I'm not sure the exact wording, but it is along the lines of:

"Whatever you need the most, be the first to give it away."

I have been thinking about it a lot.  What do I need most?  Grace?  Love?  Affirmation?  Encouragement? (Rice Krispy Treats??) The list could go on for days and days. I think that I enjoy loving people.  In fact, it is very easy for me to do so.  Why?  Probably because that is what I need most.  Sometimes it's hard to admit, because we are taught to be all tough and ass kicking....  But, I'll be the first to say that I need some loving:)  But, truly, there is no better feeling than giving away love.  I don't do it perfectly and I probably don't even do it well.  But I think it is something worth giving a go.  So think about it.  What do you need the most?  And can you give it away?

Here is another interesting thing.  The other night I was having a pretty hearty convo with the resident counselor of Gryffindor tower.  We tend to cover many things, but we just so happened to be talking about relationships and sacrifice and love.  Not that I have mush experience in any of those, but I am always fascinated by each of them.  Lately I have just been amazed by certain things.  Things that I don't even want to write on here in case I pissed anyone off, but I have truly been amazed.  In positive and negative ways.  People and their relations truly intrigue me.  Back to love.  While talking she threw out some examples of sacrificial love (none of which made me want to jump on the sacrifice train) and I was truly stunned. (In a good way).  She also casually explained that we should be able to love and expect nothing in return.  Nothing?  Ain't so sure about that. It's total and complete vulnerability.  Doing things knowing that they may go unnoticed.  Or unappreciated.  That is the killer for me.  I don't like things to go unappreciated.  Well guess what?  That's also where I realized I may need to do some growing.  I have to be okay with doing things (out of love) and them going unnoticed. (Hell, that's probably how it's supposed to be anyways.) I tell you what- I learn something new every single, dang day.

Later,
SRS

Is it worth it?

I've been thinking about a whole mess of things lately.  Sorry for the blog absence, but I've been meaning to collect my thoughts on many things and haven't had a real sense of what to write.  But, today, sitting in my office, I got a tid bit of inspiration. 

Last week we said goodbye to a sweet, sweet boy.  A lot of my favorite memories with the Dotts include Michael Reese.  I don't know if I can recall a time of not seeing a smile on his face.  I feel like we have been dealing a lot more with loss lately.  Especially this year.  The low country has said goodbye to some of the best and most loved people.  And it has been hard.  Hard to watch.  Hard to experience.  And especially hard to watch other people experience.  But, I learned something at Michael's funeral.  The message was on love and grief.  At first I was immediately not a fan of this topic, but then something hit me.  He said (this is paraphrased a bit), if we choose to love greatly, we will lose greatly.  We will grieve the losses of loves.  At first I thought this sounded absolutely horrible.  But, then after a few days it kept coming back.  We can choose to play it safe, not risk too much and keep to our selves.  Sounds pretty safe.  Not a lot to lose.  But, if we choose that, then we aren't choosing to live.  To really live.  To really live as we are called is to love.  And if we choose to really love, then we are taking a risk.  A huge risk.  We risk our hearts.  Vulnerability at it's core.  In my personal/very non professional opinion- it is more than worth the risk.  We have the chance to love people.  To have relationships that encourage us.  Relationships that make us feel worthy.  To be able to share that with others is so cool.  The hardest part about loving well though, is when we lose those that we love.  There is no way to describe it.  It is the most horrible feeling ever. I wish it upon no one.  But, I keep coming back to what the preacher said.  We can love greatly.  We can change lives.  Just by loving.  With loving greatly does come losing, but I can't imagine not taking the risk.  Not fully living and not fully loving.  We have such an amazing chance.  A chance to love people.  When they are awesome and when they are not so awesome.  At their best and at their worst.  Why?  Because someone loved us first when we least deserved it.  Love on.  Love well.

People of Whole Foods: The Buffet

No body take offense. Thank you.

Whole Foods.  So much to say here.  I both love and hate the Whole Foods.  Here is what I love: its like an ice box in there, the fruit is beautiful (like for real.  I want to buy it just because it makes me happy to look at), the pizza, the sandwiches and 2 of the cashiers.  Here is what I hate:  All of the herbal stuff (because it smells and I have not a damn clue what any of it is), the magazines, and the crappy feeling I get shopping there.  I am just not a Whole Foods girl.  I wish I was, but I am not.  I'm sure this is all me, but I'm always feeling a little judged in there.  Like the people somehow know that I would rather be eating at Boulevard Diner.  Let me move on to today's point.

The Hot Bar/Salad Bar.  At first I am always deceived.  I think to myself, "Self, you can do this.  You too can be one of these people here at the hot bar."  And then reality sets in.  People swarm the bar and panic sets in.  Sometimes I feel like a tribute in the Hunger Games making a dash for the cornucopia... I happened to be there at feeding time the other night.  Terrifying.  I picked up my earth friendly box and began constructing my healthy dinner.  Right off the bat I felt like an inconvenience.  I had to borrow the salad tongs from a lady with zero patience.  I dropped some spinach in the romaine.  Dear Lord I'm a sinner.  I thought the lady was going to swallow me whole.  Then I move along down the trough.  All I want is some shredded butternut squash (never thought I'd say that).  So I was waiting for the lady in front of me to finish her business.  I get some squash and go to drop the excess back in the trough. Apparently that is not protocol.  I got the look of death from granola girl next to me.  Sorry, I can't eat 3 lbs of squash.  I will die.  I move along.  I tried to count out some chick peas.  Don't want to over due it.  My body isn't used to all this roughage and I don't want to over load it here..  I get to the meat.  I parcel out some turkey.  And put 2 back. Sorry, that adds like 3 dollars to my box...  Once again I get disgusted looks.  I decide to get some orzo.  I felt like I had 20 people waiting for me to finish.  I couldn't get exactly what I wanted because I felt like I was majorly inconveniencing the line that had amassed behind me.  Then I made my way around the corner.  I spotted tofu.  I am not a tofu gal. But, against my core beliefs, I tried one.  Yes.  I stole a cube of tofu off of the salad bar.  I tried to be sneaky as I popped the cube of who knows what into my mouth.  Only to turn and see two men staring at me.  Oops?  Boy was I sorry. I thought I may die on the spot.  There was nothing to wash it down with. I once again confirmed my carnivorous love.  I move along.  To the cheese and dressing.  Finally, something I know!  I am pretty sure I am the only person who eats from the cheese on the bar. It is always full and I always feel judged when I add my cheese.  Same with the dressing.  The dressing is what seals the deal here.  I need it in order to actually eat what is below it.  I feel like such a salad fake.  A greens wannabee.  And then the reality sets in that I'm not a Boulevard Diner.  Or Mozzo.  Nope. I'm eating greens and legumes.  And other things that I am not even sure what they are called.  And then disappointment washes over and I in turn resent the hot bar/ salad bar and its people.  Whole Foods shame sets in.  And I exit.  With my $10 salad...