Running the Race

Yesterday was absolutely amazing.  For those of you who don’t know, the Challenger Little League is a baseball league for kids with disabilities, ages 5-18, that I have been volunteering with since I was 9 and we were asked to play a game against another Challenger team from the Bronx yesterday at Yankee Stadium.  We played the game in left field where they had set up a field for us.  It was absolutely fabulous.  They are tearing down Yankee Stadium this summer and there will be a new stadium for next season so it was really exciting to be there one last time before the ‘House that Ruth Built’ is gone.  (I stole grass and dirt lol).  But yeah, so we got there and the kids were treated like superstars.  We had a crowd of 400, there were reporters and photographers everywhere.  News stations were interviewing the kids.  They had the line up announced and when the kids went up to bat they announced their name and showed their picture on the big jumbotron screen.  It was awesome.  They were treated like the celebrities that they are.  I’ve seen some of these kids grow up on the baseball field and it was so heartwarming to see them go from not wanting to even get on a baseball field to playing in Yankee Stadium.  Every summer since I was 9 I always looked forward to seeing all of my kids again and being a coach.  I’m really going to miss this next summer and it was really hard to say goodbye to everyone.  It’s starting to hit me that I’m going to be missing out on a lot of special things, not only Challenger but seeing my brothers and little cousins grow up, going to AJ’s baseball games, birthdays, etc.   I’m probably going to cry a little from time to time but I think that’s ok.  I know where God wants me and I know that He’ll make it all ok.  Regardless, my kids played the perfect game yesterday.  A lot of dreams came true and a lot of memories were made and that’s what matters.

oh hey.  I’ve been locked in my house for the past two days so naturally, i’m extremely bored.  Therefore, I’m just gonna write this blog about nothing significant.  So I got to spend the day with Mike and Karen in NYC on Saturday which was so much fun.  I was so excited to see them.  They got to meet my friend Annie which was awesome as well.  We walked from 33rd St. through Times Square and all the way to Central Park on 59th St. It was a long walk and it was soooo hot but it was a lot of fun.  We went to lunch at Ray’s Pizza on 52nd and 7th and Mike got 2 slices of this Meat Lover’s pizza which were huge and he pretty much consumed a small child.  It was amazing.  oh yeah, so the reason I’m locked in my house is because I have tonsillitis.  mehhh.  I am on these meds until july 7th.  I’m feeling better today than I was yesterday though, my fever went down, it was 101.4 or whatever.  So yeah, I’m not a telemarketer anymore because the doctor didn’t want me back to work until the 8th and I was gonna be leaving my job on the 18th anyway so I called my boss and he said that it didn’t make sense for me to come back for a week. I’m totally ok with not working for the next couple of weeks though.  I’ll enjoy the relaxation and it will give me more time to get all of my stuff together for Greensboro and time to hang out with family and friends before I go back as well.  I’m going to play baseball at Yankee Stadium on the 10th.  The Challenger Little League that I have been volunteering with since I was 9 is playing a game against another Challenger League from the Bronx there.  Alicia is gonna be up here around that time too and I’m so excited to be seeing her as well.  Next weekend is going to be crazy hectic.  The baseball game is on the 10th, i’m going to an open mic night on the 11th, Ricky is having some crazy party where I have to dress up like a character from a movie musical or whatever on the 12th and then the 13th is Dani Chez’s graduation party. (what do you do with a BA in English?)  The next weekend is when the youth will be here.  I’m crazy excited to see them.  I have my family picnic on the  20th and then me and my co-pilot, Nick Pegram, will be making the drive back to Greensboro! Wooot! I’m so excited.  God has really provided for me this summer.  I know He wants me in Greensboro and He is just doing everything to make that happen for me.  I’m also learning to just be patient and realizing that the most happens when I do nothing but follow.  It’s pretty stellar. I love Jesus. I can’t wait to see everybody!! Ok, as I said I’m bored and you have probably stopped reading by now (I don’t blame you one bit) so I’m going to go and make tea or whatever.

<3

So I kind of took next to no time to write this therefore it’s kind of scattered around but here it is.

Today I realized how much the myspace and facebook top friends things annoy the crap out of me. Why do we seem to live in a world where everyone has a ranking system of some sort? Why am I ‘required’ to put people ahead or behind one another? I mean, I love all of my friends equally. I don’t love one more than the other. Now yeah of course there are certain people that I’m closer to than others, certain people that when something important happens, they pop into my head first, but that doesn’t mean that I love them more than anyone else. And it’s like that with everybody. Everybody has the certain people that they consider their ‘best’ friends. And there’s nothing wrong with that. I feel like if we all tried to be best friends with each other, we’d be exhausted. But I despise the idea of ranking people by how close we are. Because I get the people who are like ‘why am I not on your top friends?’ or ‘why am I #13 on your top friends?’ and I mean I definitely used to do that too but now I just see how silly it is. I know that my friends love me. I know how close I am with each individual person. So why rely on what a top friends thing says about the friendship? And why bother having one if people are going to look at it and possibly be hurt by it? I don’t know, maybe I’m just taking this too far but I really can’t stand the stupid top friends thing anymore. It’s stupid. If you know me, you know that I love you. You already know what kind of relationship we have. Nothing is going to stop me from loving. So now that I’m done rambling, I took the stupid top friends thing off my myspace. I mean, God doesn’t love one person more than the other, and neither do I. And if top friends is giving the impression that I am doing so, then I want nothing to do with it.

why am i so afraid to take a step?

why do i feel so intimidated?

why am i trying to fix something that i can’t?

why am i not saying anything?

why do i have no patience?

why is it so hard for someone to let go?

why can’t people get their priorities in check?

why can’t people do what is necessary for themselves?

why can’t people see that their actions are hurting other people?

why do these things keep me up all night?

why do i feel so alone?

why do i open a door only to find one that’s closed?

why do i feel like i can’t handle it anymore?

why do i feel like i’m being held back from the edge?

why

can’t

i

fly

?

I got this from one of my friends and I found it HILARIOUS!! I just had to share it with everybody.  If you know anything about theater, you will appreciate this!!

Theatrical Definitions:

Eternity: The time that passes between a dropped cue and the next line.

Prop: A hand-carried object small enough to be lost by an actor 30 seconds before it is needed on stage.

Director: The individual who suffers from the delusion that he or she is responsible for every moment of brilliance cited by the critic in the local review.

Blocking: The art of moving actors on the stage in such a manner as not to collide with the walls, the furniture, the orchestra pit or each other. Similar to playing chess, except that the pawns want to argue with you.

Blocking Rehearsal: A rehearsal taking place early in the production schedule where actors frantically write down movements which will be nowhere in evidence by opening night.

Quality Theater: Any show with which you were directly involved.

Turkey: Every show with which you were not directly involved.

Dress Rehearsal: Rehearsal that becomes a whole new ball game as actors attempt to maneuver among the 49 objects that the set designer added at 7:30 that evening.

Tech Week: The last week of rehearsal when everything that was supposed to be done weeks before finally comes together at the last minute; reaches its grand climax on dress rehearsal night when costumes rip, a dimmer pack catches fire and the director has a nervous breakdown.

Set: An obstacle course which, throughout the rehearsal period, defies the laws of physics by growing smaller week by week while continuing to occupy the same amount of space.

Monologue: That shining moment when all eyes are focused on a single actor who is desperately aware that if he forgets a line, no one can save him.

Dark Night: The night before opening when no rehearsal is scheduled so the actors and crew can go home and get some well-deserved rest, and instead spend the night staring sleeplessly at the ceiling because they’re sure they needed one more rehearsal.

Bit Part: An opportunity for the actor with the smallest role to count everybody else’s lines and mention repeatedly that he or she has the smallest part in the show.

Green Room: Room shared by nervous actors waiting to go on stage and the precocious children whose actor parents couldn’t get a baby-sitter that night, a situation which can result in justifiable homicide.

Dark Spot: An area of the stage which the lighting designer has inexplicably forgotten to light, and which has a magnetic attraction for the first- time actor. A dark spot is never evident before opening night.

Hands: Appendages at the end of the arms used for manipulating one’s environment, except on a stage, where they grow six times their normal size and either dangle uselessly, fidget nervously, or try to hide in your pockets.

Stage Manager: Individual responsible for overseeing the crew, supervising the set changes, baby-sitting the actors and putting the director in a hammerlock to keep him from killing the actor who just decided to turn his walk-on part into a major role by doing magic tricks while he serves the tea.

Lighting Director: Individual who, from the only vantage point offering a full view of the stage, gives the stage manager a heart attack by announcing a play-by-play of everything that’s going wrong.

OR

Lighting Designer: One who whines and throws fits, and says “this is the last show I’m doing here ! I swear to God !” (rinse, repeat).

Makeup Kit: (1) Among experienced community theater actors, a battered tackle box loaded with at least 10 shades of greasepaint in various stages of desiccation, tubes of lipstick and blush, assorted pencils, bobby pins, braids of crepe hair, liquid latex, old programs, jewelry, break-a-leg greeting cards from past shows, brushes and a handful of half-melted cough drops; (2) For first- time male actors, a helpless look and anything they can borrow.

The Forebrain: The part of an actors brain which contains lines, blocking and characterization; activated by hot lights.

The Hindbrain: The part of an actor’s brain that keeps up a running subtext in the background while the forebrain is trying to act; the hindbrain supplies a constant stream of unwanted information, such as who is sitting in the second row tonight, a notation to seriously maim the crew member who thought it would be funny to put real Tabasco sauce in the fake Bloody Marys, or the fact that you need to do laundry on Sunday.

Stage Crew: Group of individuals who spend their evenings coping with 50-minute stretches of total boredom interspersed with 30-second bursts of mindless panic.

Message Play: Any play which its director describes as “worthwhile,” “a challenge to actors and audience alike,” or “designed to make the audience think.” Critics will be impressed both by the daring material and the roomy accommodations, since they’re likely to have the house all to themselves.

Bedroom Farce: Any play which requires various states of undress on stage and whose set sports a lot of doors. The lukewarm reviews, all of which feature the phrase “typical community theater fare” in the opening paragraph, are followed paradoxically by a frantic attempt to schedule more performances to accommodate the overflow crowds.

Set Piece: Any large piece of furniture which actors will resolutely use as a safety shield between themselves and the audience, in an apparent attempt to both anchor themselves to the floor, thereby avoiding floating off into space, and to keep the audience from seeing that they actually have legs.

Strike: The time immediately following the last performance that all cast and crew members are required to watch the two people who own Makita screw drivers dismantle the set.

Actors: People who stand between the audience and the set designer’s art, blocking the view. That’s also the origin of the word “blocking,” by the way.

Stage Right, Stage Left: Two simple directions actors pretend not to understand in order to drive directors crazy.
(“No, no, your OTHER stage right!”)

“Just remember: It’s only theatre until it offends someone

.
.
.
Then it’s ART!”

The last couple of weeks have been really strange for me. I kind of distanced myself from everyone and everything. I haven’t really known what to think or how to think or feel. I seriously kind of forgot how to feel. Like I turned off my emotions, not completely, but just enough to realize that I had no idea what was going on anymore. I was in a place where I doubted everything. I doubted God, His creation, etc. and I’ve been trying to figure out this concept of ‘real’ and ‘reality’.

So what is real? What is reality? How do I know that this table exists? How do I know that I even exist? What makes real, real and reality, reality?

Let’s break it down:

Real

- being an actual thing; having objective existence; not imaginary

- actual as opposed to possible or potential

- actual, genuine, sincere

Reality

- the state or quality of being real

- something that exists independently of all other things and from which all other things derive

- That which is real; an actual existence; that which is not imagination, fiction, or pretense; that which has objective existence, and is not merely an idea.

When I re-read the definitions I found for real and reality, the only thing that I can think of that can be used to describe what it is talking about is God.

I tried to doubt God. That failed. I can’t doubt truth. And if God is truth and God is real and God is reality then God is everything. And everything is God’s creation and God is everything then everything is real and God’s creation is reality.

Genesis 1:1

‘In the beginning, God created the heavens and earth.’

That’s pretty self-explanatory right? Then why is it so difficult to comprehend?

I’ve decided that sometimes things aren’t meant to be understood, they are just to be known. If we could comprehend or understand God, He would have limits. Who wants a God with limits? I know I don’t.

So back to this reality, which we have determined is real. Sometimes I feel like I can’t handle it. I want to escape or run away just to avoid reality. I’ll pull away and detach myself from myself in true theater-kid style just so I don’t have to accept or deal with anything. The fact of the matter is, we can try and run away from reality, but God is reality and there is no running from God. Sure you can fall away from God but you can’t run from Him.

2 Timothy 2:13 says

‘if we are faithless, he will remain faithful, for he cannot disown himself.’

God doesn’t go away, we go away. We can have our ideas about what God is all about but that doesn’t change who He is or what He is actually all about.

On this quest of trying to figure out what reality is, I decided to go to biblegateway.com and type the word ‘reality’ into the search box. Apparently the word reality is only used once in the entire NIV bible. It is in Colossians 2:17. It says ‘These are a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ.’

Reality is found in Christ. God is found in Christ. When we find Christ, we find God, we find real, we find reality, we find life. There is no escaping. We can try to escape. We can take some pills and fly, drink a few bottles and pass out, sleep around, sit alone and watch ourselves bleed, etc. But after we do these things and if we really know Christ, we ask ourselves why we even did it in the first place. We realize that the act of trying to escape doesn’t even compare to the joy or comfort that is found in Christ so why did we even bother trying to get out of that in the first place?

Knowing Christ and wanting to escape life is an oxymoron.

People living deeply have no fear of death.

Why do we continually try to control the things that we can’t do anything about? Is it because we want the control? Or because we don’t want to admit that we don’t have control? Or is it that we say we trust but we really don’t? So why is it so hard to give up on things? I think it’s because we have all been conditioned and trained to do all that we can until we finally win. ‘If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again’. Ever since we were children we have been told that we have to do everything possible to try and win and overcome. In reality, we have control over nothing. We can try and fix things on our own but we’ll always come up short. So why can’t we just accept that and let it be?

As far as wanting the control. No one likes not having it. It’s like you are driving down the highway and your steering wheel decides to turn a different way than you want it and you automatically freak out even though it might be going in the direction of a short cut to get where you wanted to go in the first place. But because we don’t know that in advance, we freak out. We don’t know what the outcome is going to be. We don’t have control.

Which brings me to the whole trust thing. If God is calling us in a different direction than the one that we want to go in, why are we so reluctant? Isn’t His way perfect? Maybe it’s because we think we know what is best for us and what we want to do suits ourselves more that it does God. Let’s be honest, being a Christian is not easy. If God is calling us to do something that we don’t want to do, it’s hard. We always want to do things our own way and sometimes we forget who we are living for. We forget that we need salvation and we need to be pointed in the right direction because if we didn’t need God, Jesus wouldn’t have had to go to Calvary.

Anyone who knows my God knows that He is perfect and that He controls everything from the most difficult situation in someone’s life to each blade of grass blowing in the wind. And anyone who knows my God knows that He makes everything glorious.

No one said it would be easy, they just said it would be worth it.

it’s funny how my mind works. i’ll sit here and bottle up everything that is hurting me because a) i don’t want to think about it, deal with it, or acknowledge the hurt and b) i feel like if i talk about it no one will understand where i’m coming from therefore they won’t have anything significant to say so what’s the use of crying and getting upset? And then i hit the breaking point where the slightest thing can put me over the edge and i can’t help but to burst into tears. I find that i can’t hold it back anymore and then I have to just find someone who i can talk to and who will listen and try to understand. I don’t have many people that I can just talk to. It just doesn’t happen that way for me. It’s something that I’ve been working on since January and honestly, it’s gotten better but it’s definitely not where i want it to be. But I don’t want to be a completely opened book and just talk to anyone. I think talking too much about something can make the situation worse. Then after I talk to someone, they tell me that they are going through the exact same thing or that they have gone through the situation and it’s God slapping me in the face and saying “See, I wasn’t kidding when I told you that man sharpens man. Why do you have to try and prove me wrong?” God wants us to think and feel and deal with hurt. We’re not going to be happy all the time. Would we still lean on God if we were happy all the time? Getting pushed over the edge can be a scary thing but it reminds me of a quote that I love:

Come to the edge.

No we can’t.

Come to the edge.

No we’ll fall.

Come to the edge.

No we’re afraid.

And they came.

And He pushed them.

And they flew.

pretty much I’m just at this point where there’s so much hurt and pain, like the world is collapsing around me but I’m realizing that it’s ok to feel like this sometimes. I have faith in God that eventually everything will be better than it was before; that He will heal in His own time. And it’s good to be reminded that I’m not alone. No one is alone. Not only do we have God, but we have each other. You’d be surprised to find out how many people are going through the same thing as you. For some reason it always surprises me.

Why do we play with fire?
Why do we run our finger through the flame?
Why do we leave our hand on the stove-
Although we know we’re in for some pain?

Oh, why do we refuse to hang a light
When the streets are dangerous?
Why does it take an accident
Before the truth gets through to us?

Cages or wings?
Which do you prefer?
Ask the birds.

Fear or love, baby?
Don’t say the answer
Actions speak louder than words.

Why should we try to be our best
When we can just get by and still gain?
Why do we nod our heads
Although we know
The boss is wrong as rain?

Why should we blaze a trail
When the well worn path seems safe and
So inviting?

How-as we travel, can we
See the dismay-
And keep from fighting?

Cages or wings?
Which do you prefer?
Ask the birds
Fear or love, baby?
Don’t say the answer
Actions speak louder than words

What does it take
To wake up a generation?
How can you make someone
Take off and fly?

If we don’t wake up
And shake up the nation
We’ll eat the dust of the world
Wondering why

Why do we stay with lovers
Who we know, down deep
Just aren’t right?

Why would we rather
Put ourselves through hell
Than sleep alone at night?

Why do we follow leaders who never lead?
Why does it take catastrophe to start a revolution?
If we’re so free, tell me why?

Someone tell me why
So many people bleed?

Cages or wings?
Which do you prefer?
Ask the birds.

• You might get hurt standing up for what you believe in, stand up anyway

• Find your gift and use it to the best of your ability because that is when God will shine most brightly.

• To be accepted by people shouldn’t matter very much because you are accepted by the God of the universe and nothing can compare to that.

Just somethings that God is teaching me lately.