This is an imperfect post.

As part of my Lenten promise this year, I decided to spend time each day in prayer. Yeah, that's not so original, nor special (though I could do with a little more consistency in my prayer life...). Last year, I spent Lent getting comfortable with silence. Our world is a noisy one and being alone with my thoughts can be, well... scary. This year I wanted to be more aware of God in my everyday stuff, more accutely intuned to the whispers of God in my heart. I can't even really explain what it is that I'm hoping will be the result, but I spend time each day in prayer with my sketchbook. I really love art and I'd like to be better at it. There's something tremendously attractive to me about art as prayer -- I've even bought books on it. But I hesitate to actually do it. And I hesitated to share this part of my Lenten practice.

Because I'm afraid I don't "do it right." I'm get so caught up in my lack of ability that I paralyze myself from even trying it.

A few years ago, I got a book called "Wreck This Journal" for Christmas. The whole concept is "To create is to destroy." Basically, the creative process is messy. (Check out Keri Smith's other books and fun ideas at www.kerismith.com) Conceptually, I loved it. I asked for the book and I was so excited to get it. But I've never done anything with it, because I was afraid it wouldn't be good enough.

I WAS AFRAID I WOULDN'T DESTROY SOMETHING CORRECTLY!

Who thinks that?!

Obviously, however I wreck the journal will be fine. I was so caught up in my own expectations that I failed to enjoy the process. I failed to even start the process. (The truly ironic part? I've spent years telling people to just start writing. Don't get caught up composing the perfect text; put something on the paper, so you can figure out what needs improved and work with it.Physician, heal thyself...)

I recognize, though, that there is a lesson in all of this. I can't quite articulate it just yet. "God doesn't ask us to be successful, just faithful"works here, but I think there's more to it than that. Something along the lines of how my own expectations can prevent me from seeing God or cooperating with God's grace. It sparks in my heart a longing for a deeper meaning, a better understanding, a greater turning of my imperfect art-prayer-self to my God who creates everything anew, even as I delight in the process of creating.

Only a few days into Lent, the process has already brought about some surprising results, including the previous post. (And who knew you could get drawing lessons by iMessage?) I'm not sure where this will take me, but I'm looking forward to the process.

Lent is a season of purification and enlightenment. Sometimes, that isn't perfect and it gets messy. And that's ok.

(As always, the views expressed here are mine alone and do not necessarily reflect those of my employer.)

Drawing Lessons.

drawing lesson by iMessage + Lenten commitment to prayer = seeing the Light better

Times they are a-changin'... and changin' and changin'

I'm a millennial. Technically, by my birth year, I'd be the tail end of the Gen Xers, but, characteristically, I'm thoroughly, sometimes painfully, a Millennial. I've read a lot about millennials recently, especially about the emerging adults. It is simulateously disturbing and relieving to be so... typical? In the past ten years, I:

• dreamed of living in Ireland for a year, only to never go


• graduated from college


• got married, divorced (and annulled, for anyone who's keeping track) and married again


• lived at twelve different addresses in four different states


• had six different jobs. Just counting the post-college jobs, not including short-term, contracted or consulting positions


• started grad school. Twice. (And will finish. Once. This year.)


• drove thousands of miles on spur of the moment road trips, wrote hundreds of thousands words, drank too much coffee to even imagine

But I've had the same phone number.

Change is constant. In general, it doesn't bother me. It's not always easy, but I generally can roll with the punches. In fact, I'm so used to change that I've come to expect it.

What I've come to realize this Lent is that I get bored easily. Very easily. I barely begin new adventures before I start to wonder, "What's next?" Hell, I write blog posts and before they're edited, I've moved on to the next one, the next idea, the next...

My brain floods with ideas at times, faster than I can even comprehend them. I get excited, the ideas rush out of my brain faster than my mouth or fingers can move to communicate them to someone else... and I've completely overwhelmed people, just trying to get enough out of my head that I can focus! I'm naturally curious, I like learning new things and experiencing new places, and I'm highly inclined to flights of fancy... but there's something to be said about discipline. It's tremendously difficult for me to just. be. still. And it's not just because I need to switch to decaf... This is the new adventure. To be still. To slow down long enough to look around. To be patient, with myself and others. To be satisfied. So far, it's not been easy. Next? The views expressed in this blog are mine alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of my employer.

45 Days.

Well...more or less, depending on how you count the days.

In 45 days, I'll turn 30. It doesn't bother me.

In fact, I'm more bothered by a) the fact that my birthday falls on a Friday NOT during Lent and I can't think of any special way I'd like to celebrate it and b) people asking me if I'm freaked out by turning 30.

*shrug*

The other thing that is bothering me is The List. On my 25th birthday, I started The List: 25 Things I Think I Know. It was a wild year for me and it was a feeble attempt to take stock of what I had to show for my 25 years of taking up space and using oxygen. When I turned 27, I actually shared the list -- that's the only one I've ever shared. At age 29, I quit at 17 things and never finished. (The list, by the way, is new each year. I don't just smack another item onto the end. Those are the rules.)

I thought about just letting it go, but... I actually kind of like it.

After 30 years, what do I know? Stay tuned...

Here's the list from year 27, if you missed it the first time.
27 Things I Think I Know

1. For better or for worse, life goes on.
2. Even when I can think there is no end in sight, God sees the big picture.
3. There’s nothing quite like the ocean for reminding me that this world is much bigger than me.
4. Amazing moments of ministry can happen over chocolate martinis. (Strawberry hookah is optional. )
5. The more you love, the more you hurt.
6. There is no such thing as a simple trip to the BMV.
7. Some friends are in your life for a moment; others for a lifetime. All of them are there for a reason. It’s not about who you have known the longest.
8. I don’t have all the answers. Even though that terrifies me sometimes, it’s okay.
9. The greatest gift that can be given is time and attention.
10. Having compassion is better than having the right thing to say or the solution to the problem. Compassion will overcome most shortcomings.
11. I am my worst enemy.
12. Time spent in prayer is never time wasted.
13. God loves me more than I can comprehend. Trying to name it would be putting God in a box. 14. No one deserves to be treated like a door mat.
15. God is patient, but not pushy. He has already chosen me. I have to keep choosing Him.
16. To quote Robert Fulghum, “Life is lumpy. And a lump in the oatmeal, a lump in the throat, and a lump in the breast are not the same lump…learn to separate the inconveniences from the problems.”
17. A sense of humor doesn’t necessarily make life easier, but it makes it more enjoyable.
18. Good books, good coffee, good company, and good conversation are always worth it.
19. Miracles happen.
20. There is a part of me that will always be an English teacher.
21. Life doesn’t come with a rewind button. Live, learn, move on.
22. To share in another’s journey of life and faith is an amazing privilege and blessing.
23. Sometimes family helps us bear our crosses, and sometimes family is the cross we bear.
24. I can’t save anyone or make anyone change.
25. I never want to stop learning.
26. I need people in my life who challenge me to grow. Even if they annoy me.
27. I’m not where I thought I would be in my life, but I wouldn’t change it.

(The views expressed in this blog are mine alone and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of my employer.)

Resolutions

• Blog at least once a week.
• Deal with the "Room To Be Dealt With" aka -- The room that makes us look like we should be on Hoarders (starting with getting 100 items out of the apartment by January 31. Thanks for the idea, Turn Right at Lake Michigan.)
• Spend at least one hour each week doing something creative: writing, drawing, photography... something.
• Finish my Master's degree.
• Get a library card.
• ...and all the normal "eat better, exercise more, quit my vices" crap... well, except the vices I like...

Here's to an exciting (but only in the good way), joyful 2011.

All opinions reflected here are my own and do not necessarily represent the views of my employer.

Building Bridges...

Nothing fancy here, friends. Just tossing the stuff in my head out into the blogosphere to see what may develop...

As you may have guessed from my previous post, I'm reading much these days about young adults, God, Church and technology. This is the kind of stuff that intrigues me, irritates me, rolls around in my head, comes gushing out of my mouth as non-sequiturs, and returns to my own ears newly conceived to go through the whole process again. Current reads? Hamlet's BlackBerry and Handing on the Faith in an Age of Disbelief. A modern philosophy meets Pope Benedict XVI. Awesome.

A true confession: (Is there such thing as an untrue confession? Doesn't that defeat the purpose?) Between the web-based work I do for my job (which, by the way, I'm super excited about) and the web-related thinking I do for my homework, I just. want. it. to. STOP. Seriously. (The irony, of course, is not lost on me that I'm professing my desire to break from the techno-world in the techno-sphere.) I seriously just want to paint something. I need a creative outlet that does not involve a screen. Interestingly enough, that's what Hamlet's Blackberry is about -- finding the "gap" between interfaces so we can accomplish something that is not do-able in 140 characters or less: Depth. And that sounds blissful... but maybe that's just because I have more than 140 characters worth of stuff to say. and ask. and think about. Does technology help me figure out who I am? You know, when I do things like this and type-out-loud? Or does it distract me and keep me from the quiet, alone place where I can explore the deeper questions of what it means to be human? To another level, how do I identify God in this noise and light?

Another thing bouncing in my brain: knowledge of the faith. For my purposes, I'm most concerned with Catholics, but really, studies have shown that people in the United States just have a poor understanding of religious traditions in general. In the biz, we talk about knowledge of the faith as one of the six tasks of catechesis, and it's through the other five tasks that knowledge of the faith is contextualized. SO, if people don't have an experience of God, or community, or relationship, how can we expect that they will know and understand the faith?

Being engaged in social media is all about presence, relationship and community. Prayer is about relationship, communication, presence. The mystical Body of Christ is about community and presence and relationship. All related. How are they connected? What's the bridge? How can we use technology to form a culture that understands what it means to be human, rather than have a culture chasing after the latest and greatest in technology? What do we need to disconnect from technology long enough to be in the quiet, alone place, so we can contemplate -- in depth! -- what it means to be human, created in the image and likeness of God? How can we see and hear Christ in the blinking and beeping of a 4G world?

Any one?

The views expressed in this blog are mine alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of my employer.

Something about 20-Somethings

I have a request, as a young adult: If you are not a young adult, please quit writing about young adults.

Much has been written lately about the 20-somethings (See the August New York Times magazine piece What Is It About the 20-Somethings?) Some of it is undeniably true. Much of it is a matter of perspective. (Do the Boomers who are writing this stuff really understand my generation?) Most of it is not flattering. As one blogger recently noted, "After all, based on all available evidence, Millennials are the most obnoxious, self-entitled, lazy, and willfully ignorant generation to ever pollute the surface of the earth." (You can read the rest here.) And more discussion here. Even the article Why Bashing Millennials is Wrong, which shows the positive side to characteristics otherwise considered negative, identifies Millennials as entitled -- the "poodles of humanity."

While there seem to be a few rational voices out there (20-somethings, by the way) such as this one, who point to the "delayed adolescence" as being more about the economy than maturity, the whole concept of not being an adult because we don't settle into a "real job," get married, buy a house and have a family is asinine. I know plenty of immature Boomers who own houses and have spouses (and former spouses!) who get to keep their adult card, despite being more "adolescent" than most of my friends who are 20-something.

The "religious" responses haven't been tremendously kind either. As I read the title of this blog post about Evangelizing Young Adults , I found myself holding my breath. It seems most of what is being written about Young Adults in the Church either bemoans them as the Missing Generation or, when presenting a legitimate issue separating young adults from the Church, garners comments inciting Millennials to "grow up" and quit being dissenters.

A couple of considerations:
First, the National Study of Youth and Religion and follow up research claims that the best indicator of the faith of an adolescent is the faith of the parents. If adolescents (who have moved into "emerging adulthood" are ascribing to a belief system characterized by researchers as Moralistic Therapeutic Deism, guess what the parents likely believe? Also, this NCR article notes that nearly half of Catholics who are now unaffiliated left the Church prior to age 18. So, really, who do you think made that decision? Exactly how does a "gradual drifting away" work for someone who hasn't been alive long enough to accomplish what used to be considered reaching adulthood? I wasn't raised Catholic, but I seem to recall the words, "As long as you're living under this roof..." being expressed more than once.

I'm not placing the blame on entirely on the parents. As young adults, we certainly have to make a choice to own the faith; however, bemoaning all the faults of the Millennial generation certainly does not bring us to Mass on Sunday, nor does writing off our legitimate issues with Church teaching as mere immaturity. In fact, the broad strokes used to describe my generation as lazy, distracted, uncommitted and lacking faith creates bigger problems than it solves. It is frustrating to those, like me, who are engaged in the Church, and it makes me feel like there is no place for me here. When I'm struggling to have my own voice heard, to have my own spiritual needs met, to feel that I belong...to what would I be inviting my peers? The decline in Mass attendance is caused by an absence greater than my generation. The lack of knowledge and understanding of Church teachings began before we were born. It's not a young adult problem; it's a Church problem. Maybe we can be part of the solution, if there's room for us at the table.

The truth is we have many gifts. We are innovative. We are creative. We understand how to build community and what it means to be "universal." We are committed to service, the "delay" of a "real job" often caused by committing a year or more to service to the poor, vulnerable, or under-resourced. We're intelligent, and we're making a difference. Yeah, we've got our issues, but who doesn't?

You want to know why young adults aren't in the pews? Try asking us, when you're ready to listen. Let us be part of the conversation and we might find a solution. And stop talking about us like we're not here.

The views expressed in this blog are mine alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of my employer.