Thursday, August 20, 2009

Thoughts, reflections, stories, and a commitment to blog

Well, if you've been reading this blog since it's inception you know that I've gone through times of writing a lot to a real dry spell these last few months. It's not that I haven't had anything to say, it's just that, well, I guess I haven't thought "gee, I should write that down on my blog."

Recently I've been doing a lot of reflecting as I draw to the end of a year of internship in what I count to be one of the greatest experiences of my life. As I think about the past year I thought "gee, I should write some of these thoughts down" and then thought "but what would I do with them, who would read them, what purpose would it serve?"

Yes, self-doubt can get the best of us sometimes and paralyze us from action, but I'm committing to overcome this paralysis and just write and worry about the rest later. Sometimes I will develop full thoughts other times I might just throw some ideas on the page and see if they stick. As for my "paralysis questions" well, if you're reading, that answers the "who" and if you get something out of my writing that answers the "why" and if nothing else getting these thoughts off of my brain on onto a computer will serve to open space in my brain for more important thoughts like the average wing speed of a swallow (I'll debate African or European when I have the brain space). And in the end if no one reads a word that I've written, well, it's been a good exercise for me and at least I'll have these thoughts in one location that I can go back to later.

There are a few themes that have been running through my brain that deserve full articles to themselves. Love, Thankfulness, Privilege (which I'm sure I've written about before), Story, transition, oh, the list could go on (and hopefully it will or I will run out of things to write). I hope to write at length about these things in the coming weeks.

There are songs that have been running through my brain lately too, probably because they have lyrics that touch on these various topics. One song that has been hanging with me a while now is one written by a friend of mine who happens to be the worship leader here at Saint Matthew ... in the song he writes, "We have been blessed, now we want to be a blessing"

That single line resonates with me so loudly because I think about the places where I have been a blessing to others and I realize that it generally flows out of some experience of being blessed myself. And what a vicious cycle that creates because when I bless someone, they tend to bless me in return and I bless them they bless me and so on! But how humbling to think about being a link in that chain!

Last night Stephanie and I watched the finale of "Top Chef Masters" and something that Stephanie mentioned was the humility of Rick Bayless who went on to win the competition. The whole "Masters" show stood in stark contrast to the "Top Chef" show where the "up and coming" chefs try to show their prowess because of this concept of humility. Those that are "up and coming" seem to have to assert themselves and they tend to do so by stepping on and stepping over others (and often the drama that ensues in the show is due to the attitude of a young chef trying to show-up one of the more experienced judges), but in the "Masters" competition it was simply about doing one's best and letting their work shine and in some cases, lending a hand to their fellow competitor. We can all learn a lot from this insight.