If I could be...

This is a quote from The Picture of Dorian Gray" by Oscar Wilde.

"If this girl can give a soul to those who have lived without one, if she can create the sense of beauty in people whose lives have been sordid and ugly, if she can strip them of their selfishness and lend them tears for sorrows that are not their own, she is worthy of all your adoration, worthy of the adoration of the world."

I want to be this.

That is all. Goodnight.

an old song, resurrected - to lead a life

I wrote this song a year ago.
The picture's from New Zealand.
I didn't realize that I forgot them until I found them again.

To Lead A Life - by Elise Hindmarsh

I’m so sorry that I can’t be
content like others that you might see
that my first thought is about tomorrow
and not where I am, but where I might go

to lead a life without these things I might be happy

I’m afraid that I am like that
someone who hurt you and made you so sad
putting value in clothes and money
and vainly eating the milk and honey

to lead a life without these things I might be happy

maybe my mother and my father
will look at me like my older brother
who ran away and forgot to call her
but I’ve my own life, to fly and falter

to lead a life without these things I might be happy

Where do you see yourself in 10 years?

I was asked this question at a bar the other night. After my response, he said, "I hate to burst your bubble, but you have to pay the bills."

I wonder when we as creative, amazing, intelligent, impecably perservering human beings decided that in order to pay bills you must give up your dream...that for some reason to be responsible means to be boring.

I have talked to several people who love one thing and then settle for another. Who deeply desire to change the world and then sit behind a cubicle. Do I think that cubicles are a minor form of hell waiting to trap people? No. But unlike their structure, one size does not fit all. Some people are made for living out Office Space. I don't doubt that for a minute. But some people aren't.

I'm not.

I was listening to my favorite Dashboard Confessional song, "This Ruined Puzzle." It reminds me of my relationship with God, like just about every other song I hear on the radio. There's a line in this one that almost knocked my car into a telephone pole:

This basement's a coffin, I'm buried alive
I'll die in here just to be safe.
I'll die in here just to be safe.

How many of us are dead men walking because we want to be safe? I'm not talking about death = having a good job and making money is the devil. I'm talking about death of passion. Death of dreams. Death of who we are at our core, because it's just too hard to live as the image bearers of God we were meant to be.

So we settle. Maybe as a doctor, perpetual student, or fast food salesmen. Settling is different for everyone. But the principle is the same.

I want a big house in the middle of a Jewish neighborhood within walking distance from a busy city street. I want a husband. I want lots of kids. I want to sing when I'm manic and play piano when I'm depressed. I want to cook food, eat food, play football, scream at hockey refs, read Bible stories to my kids, kick and scream when I'm praying, tell people there's more hope than they realize. I don't want to feel old when I'm 40. I want to welcome strangers. Welcome friends. I want people to know they can come to my house if they need a place to crash. I want to change every part of the world that I touch, even if it's just 1 degree closer to holy.

And I want to pay the bills.

I just happen to think I can have fun and do what I love while doing it.

Am I crazy?