Nothing But Fancy

I have always wanted to be on a makeover show.  But, do to my already impeccable fashion and rockin’ sexy hair I have never been nominated…  this month God decided to nominate me for a life makeover:

My perspective of the world is viewed through five domains:  physical, intellectual, emotional, relational, and spiritual.  (This is built off of physician George Engle’s biopsyhosocial model made popular in the 1970s.)  (My undergraduate thesis focused on how music effects the regression and progression of health in each of these domains and after I completed my research, this view of life and health just stuck.)

Every domain affects the others.  They weave and harmonize like the sound waves from a symphony.  Balance in one domain can help with balance in another and vise versa.

Over the past two months every domain in my life has had a positive change… and yet, like all change, there is a resistance and painful growth that I am dealing with, as well as the joy and excitement of these new wonderful parts of my story.

Physical – For the past seven weeks I have been doing Weight Watchers.  Weight Watchers is a lifestyle that I began four months before my 21st birthday in hopes to be thin for the big day.  I lost 25lbs and then over the course of two years gained each one back.  When I moved back to Nashville from NYC, I decided to challenge myself once again to shed some pounds.  I still want to be thin, but I also want to know that the food I put into my body will make it work better and will make me feel good.  I am 8lbs lighter than 8 weeks ago.

Intellectual – I will start a new job at the General Board of Higher Education and Ministry of the United Methodist Church on Monday.  For the past year and ½ I have worked as the executive assistant for Kathie Hill Music.  Kathie has been one of the greatest mentors spiritually, creatively, and careerwise that I will ever know.

Emotional – Some things are best shared over a cup of tea.

Relational – I have a new, amazing, beautiful roommate who adds a new best friend to my life.  Christian community is one of the greatest and hardest things in the world.  I don’t know what I would do without the sisters that remind me of what it means to be alive.

Spiritual – I have become a consistent member of Bellevue UMC by joining the church choir and helping out with the youth group.  During my quite times I have been reading The Divine Conspiracy, by Dallas Willard.  This book changes the way I think about the Kingdom of God and gives deeper understanding of Jesus’ teaching.

I love helping out with youth group for thousands of reasons… one of them is it increases my opportunity to laugh so hard that tears come to my eyes.  Yesterday I asked one of the girls (let’s call her Sierra) about the highlight of her week, she smiled at another girl (let’s call her Nicole) and said, reading Nicoles Facebook quotes.  “Really?” I questioned, “What was it?”  Through laughs she explained this story:

About a year or so ago the youth went on a retreat and met up with other youth groups around the conference.  On the last evening service they shared communion.  Being the last night Sierra was tired and spacing out.  Nicole proceeded to explain that Sierra was dozing when they explained the process of intinction (taking the bread and dipping it into the grape juice) and that they would pass around small rocks for the youth to take to remember some spiritual significance.  Being a good Methodist, Sierra made it through the intinction, and as the basket of rocks came around she took one, thinking that it was an “after communion mint” and put it in her mouth!  Suddenly, she realized that this was not a mint, but a ROCK, she reverently removed it from her mouth and turned to Nicole to whisper/scream “Nicole!  Don’t eat the mints!!  It’s a ROCK!”

Maybe you just had to be there, or listen to two 17 year old girls tell this story between laughs and embarrassment… but by the end on the story I was laughing so hard that my eyes were watering!  I love UMYF (United Methodist Youth Fellowship)!

Who isn’t looking for deeper significance?  Who hasn’t struggled with Egotism?

I recently read this in my new favorite book The Divine Conspiracy by Dallas Willard:

Egotism is pathological self-obsession, a reaction to anxiety about whether one really does count.  It is a form of acute self-consciousness and can be prevented and healed only by the experience of being adequately loved.  It is, indeed, a desperate response to frustration of the need we all have to count for something and be held to be irreplaceable, without price.

Unlike egotism, the drive to significance is a simple extension of the creative impulse of God that gave us being.  It is not filtered through self-consciousness any more than is our lunge to catch a package falling from someone’s hand.  It is outwardly directed to the good to be done.  We were built to count, as water is made to run downhill.  We are placed in a specific context to count in ways no one else does.  That is our destiny.

Willard, Dallas. The Divine Conspiracy. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1997: 15.

There will definately be more about this book in my thoughts.