Hi! I’m honored and excited that you’re here, on my World Race page, because that means you are possibly, slightly, interested in what I’m doing and learning a little about me and I am excited to share :).
First things first, I feel super awkward about “About Me” sections for reasons that are evidence of me taking this far too seriously, but I will do my best. I’m a risk taker by design and thus am a successful connoisseur of a variety of failure. But thanks to a good dose of consequence amnesia, I persistently believe I can do anything I put my mind to. As long as long as I don’t get distracted by….I believe in kindness fundamentally and justified anger towards anybody who doesn’t believe the same. I’m an avid consumer of NPR and On being with Krista Tippet, Late Show with Stephen Colbert, running, danceable music, sunsets, and sweet potato chips- especially with guacamole. I do weird things like make my own deodorant and hair gel. I enjoy learning and creatively engaging (translation: short-lived attempting) with about anything I can get my hands on- whether that be nature, people, places, words, music, ideas, crafts, textiles, or colors…really anything that suits my creative fancy. I attempt to dance really whenever I can and I laugh even more often, because being human is a hilariously vulnerable process that we are all stumbling through ungracefully, but thankfully together. At any given moment, I’m usually oscillating between two extremes: being goofy in a personally amusing way or zoning out and contemplating something deeply consequential and existential…and equally ridiculous/probably actually neither one of those descriptors.
Right now I live in a picturesque town off the shores of Lake Michigan, working two dreamy little jobs: one as a barista at the most wonderful, sustainability and socially conscious coffee shop (it’s a DREAM) and the other as an employee at a downtown boutique where I use all the fashionista talent I don’t have. It’s a simple and beautiful life at the moment, and I’m taking it in for all its worth.
But if I were to give you a synopsis of who I believe I am, it would be this: I’m a recovering idealistic daydreamer, having fallen in love with the beauty of messy reality itself, in process of receiving and embracing life as it comes for all the ways it simultaneously falls short and exceeds my expectations. I’m always attempting to learn the inherent value, worth, and opportunity of every moment, every season, refusing to refuse any of it because joy, freedom, pain, failure, grace and disappointment need not be enemies and all experiences can be teachers if we let them. But this is just my personal philosophy for living and embracing life to the fullest :). I’m also driven by an unrelenting appetite and ability to see possibilities. There is SO MUCH I don’t know, and SO MUCH beauty I have not seen, and SO MANY people I want to learn from about what it means to be human, seek first the Kingdom, and see Jesus’ love and mission manifest more fully. So if I can, I’m going see, hear, touch, feel, listen, learn, experience, and know as much of it as I possibly can.
At the same time, I empathize with Jeremiah when he says “His word is in my heart like a fire, a fire shut up in my bones. I am weary of holding it in; indeed, I cannot.” (Jeremiah 20:9b) I know at the corest core of my being I exist to further the in-breaking of Kingdom of God. That I am a daughter of the Creator of the universe, created with a vision, purpose, authority, and inheritance of a participating role in what Gregory Boyd calls, “this Kingdom that is a beauty that revolts.” (Myth of a Christian Religion) Ultimately, I dream of participating in travel, social justice, and working with the U.S. church. I would love to be a liaison and/or consultant to churches, connecting them to justice initiatives or helping them start their own…it’s still a rough sketch, and I’m okay with that. I also have a side dream of using a hospitality gifting to create a safe place and community within my own space and/or home. And also another side dream to still participate in creating and leading worship. I know, so many things! Reality will fall somewhere in the cross-hairs of my best intentions, mess ups, and life things I can’t control, but whatever happens will be beautiful because, well…that’s life!
But no matter what: His Kingdom come, His will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven.
