Choose Your Own Adventure (reflection on the principle of "Story")

A couple updates from October 2010 that are worth mentioning:

1. I got engaged Nov 1st, 2010 to Chris Massa

2. I got married on March 5th, 2011 to Chris Massa

3. We are doing very, very well

There that should do it. You are now aware of most of the important changes in my life. Moving on...

Chris and I took a spontaneous road trip across the state to visit his parents and best friends, Phil and Carrie, who just had their first son, Isaac. (Some people would say that names don't matter because ultimately, I'm the only one who knows who they are. I say I'd rather identify someone by their name because it makes them a person...rant done.)

This was the first road trip in a long time in which I enjoyed the drive as much as the final destination. On the return home, we began listening to the audio book of Donald Miller's "A Million Miles in a Thousand Years." A few things you should know about my reading habits: I don't get past the first chapter, and I fall asleep within 15 minutes of a book being read. Chris has resorted to reading me short stories in order to help me fall asleep when my insomina wants to kick in (I still don't know how the Leopard got it's spots...) So, in fear that I would fall asleep, Chris told me the summary of this book before we started listening: Donald dissects the principle of "story" (a character wants something and chooses to overcome obstacles in order to get it) and what it means to have a story that's worthwhile.

I fell asleep at Chapter 2 and woke up at Chapter 10. Donald was talking to a friend who after discussing "story" with Donald, decided to change the story of his family in efforts to save his daughter. His daughter was using drugs and dating the unapproved boyfriend. So Don's friend decided that instead of grounding her, he would give her an opportunity to changer her story by entering into his: building an orphanage for $25,000. After a couple days, the daughter asked if the family could go to Mexico to visit the orphans. Then she stopped using drugs. Then she dumped her boyfriend. And then the quote that made me turn off the audio book so that I could digest it and eventually led me to write this blog: "A girl playing the hero does not date a loser like that."

How would our lives change if we thought about our stories?

What story are you in? Is it a story assigned to you, you created, or fell into without thinking? Does your story keep you interested, or are you falling asleep during the first chapter? Do you think your story will end in victory, defeat, or (the worst) when it just leaves you hanging with no answer?

What character are you? Are you a survivor who beats incredible odds? A victim who dies tragically of his own character flaw? Are you the one mentioned in line 2 page 164 and quickly forgotten by line 2.5?

If every worthwhile story has struggle, how do you respond when it comes? Do you fight head on like Indiana Jones who somehow always defeats the Nazis although they outnumber him 10-1? Do you join the Dark Side when it becomes too hard? Do you sacrifice yourself so that those around you can still have victory?

I wonder how I can apply this lesson of story to my life and to the lives of the kids I work with. Sometimes I feel we can become trapped by a story provided by a psychiatrist, or an abusive father, or a powerless religion that says the climax of "His Story" is church on Sunday and reading Bible stories. Do I believe that the True Author gives us collaborative rights to our own story, and that it can be a beautiful,edge of your seat novel of romance, adventure, and ultimate victory?

Let's choose our own adventure, friends. Let's have stories worth reading, worth living, worth waking up for. I don't want to keep falling asleep...

Soul Mates - new poem

Soul Mates

like the man stranded
on a deserted island
laughing
while thirsting
at his ironic situation
so I stare into the sea of faces
and think
people, people everywhere
but not a soul to speak

their words fly
past me
I am uninvited
their eyes search
over my shoulder
even the deeper glances zone
out of focus
and we remain acquaintances
or worse, lovers

this innate sense
of connection
is clothed in its burial shroud
age tends to cover
instincts
with well-wrought lessons
the fine thank you okay doing well going good eh alright
I’ll swallow these pleasantries

and hope remains an aftertaste
that I have a soul mate
who might listen
to every word

Download Elise Hindmarsh Music Now!

Is it okay if I smile?

This is a small venting post, I admit.

I'd like to know if it's okay if I smile. If it's okay that I thoroughly enjoy life, that I count my blessings while skipping in the grocery store, and laugh really hard at small things. I'd like to know if it's okay if I don't write songs about super sad emotions, or to make strong political statements, but simply want to bring a little thought and a little peace and a little happiness to those who hear me play. Is it okay that I am optimistic? That I think people are good at heart and become sad when I find out they're not, rather than sound the cynical cymbal with "I TOLD YOU SO" ? Is it okay that I try my best, that I desire to do well, rather than wallow in my problems and weaknesses? Is it okay if I strive?

Is it okay if I'm happy?

Because right now, I feel a ridiculous pull from those around me to bring me into their "the world is going to hell and we're gonna sit here with our drinks and complain about it" party. I'm all about being real. About not wearing masks. About being realistic. SO...

I am really, realistically, un-maskedly happy with life right now. My heart breaks for those who are struggling. But please, in love, do not attempt to break me.

Star Gazing

I wish I was star gazing right now, like the real stars in the sky that occasionally shoot across the black and allow you to make a wish.

I wish I was doing that instead of sitting here on my computer. But I am updating network pages and downloading tracks to be sold online and frankly, my butt hurts.

One of the reasons I enjoy shows is that I can meet people. Not network. Meet people. I want to get better at this. I realize that with every event, choice of restaurants, and unlimited access to movies via Netflicks, it is quite an honor for someone to take time and listen to me sing some heart murmurs that I fumbled to articulate into song.

After all this downloading completes, I am going to go and flyer for an upcoming show at a coffeehouse. I hope I can meet the people at those places. Pittsburgh is a small enough city where family can still happen on the street. I hope I never stop looking for it.

women of strength

i am so desperately in awe of the Lord who turned me, a girl who hated girls because of past betrayal, into a woman who yearns for the fellowship of women. deep, passionate women who love and hurt with such dignity that i cannot help but grow from just a passing sigh. i am so blessed. i am so honored that i would be considered and welcomed into such a sisterhood.

i hope that one day we as people will be better bonded by our love and redemption than hate and destruction. but as we inch closer to that hope, I am so thankful that i can oscillate between crying and composure with a friend's hand to hold me steady through it all.

on another note, I spent last night dancing and rejoicing in the Spirit in my room until 3am. i can't wait to dance with Him again. sorry to all of you whom i overwhelmed this afternoon as i bounced around, smiling and laughing until my ears almost popped off. but how could I be silent, when surely goodness had follow me in the house of God...may it be forever.

Hand to the Plow

Wind is picking up speed these days. Two weekends from now will hopefully be the music weekend from heaven...not, well..you know.

Saturday night I am playing at the Catholic Underground coffeehouse. Sunday I lead worship at a different church. Monday I perform with United Harvest Workers Union, Ember Days, and another band from Florida (?) that I apparently will love but always forget their name. It's exciting.

Yet of course, Elise cannot live without paradox. As things pick up with performances/worship, I feel a gentle tug on the emergency break of my slowly accelerating car. The echoing question: Why do you do what you do? It's a question of self-evalutation, of everything, everyone in my life. Including me. A sifting period.

And right as things were getting good.

Jesus says that whoever puts their hand to the plow and then looks back is not fit for the kingdom of God. So how does one look forward and inward? Or do we not judge ourselves but allow the Holy Spirit to bring things up as we plow away? Like a GPS. Hahaha: God's Personal Spirit. Hahahaha, oh, I can be such a freaking corny Christian :)

But seriously, folks, perhaps as we drive toward God's direction, the Holy Spirit whispers "turn right." And when we make a mistake, the ever popular direction on my dad's GPS occurs: "Recalculating."

Hand on the plow, eyes towards Christ, ears towards the Spirit. Now that's multi-tasking.

Wake Up! Your Alarm Clock Said.

Wake Up! Your Alarm Clock Said.

Lost again in a world of despair
Why do my dreams still haunt me?
Wake up and realize there’s nobody there
Why do the ghosts still call me?
Foreshadowing prophecy or slight indigestion
More of gravy or gravity, that is the question
Where we all fall down at the slightest suggestion
That maybe there was something more

The clouds are grey but the grass is greener
Than I’ve ever seen before
They say it’s the cones but I say that it’s God
Showing me there’s an open door
The rain keeps falling on my head on my eyes
And I realized its past the time, and I start to cry
And the water from me meets the water on high
And the bud of a fruit is now bearing

Call out to me and join all the voices
In harmony, laughing or carrying on
I try to ignore them, I can’t even answer
When they’re singing my favorite song
So I plunge my head back under the sheets
that reminds me I’m covered, I’m safe, and I’m free
and I close my eyes to go back to sleep
and the alarm screams, wake up, oh, sleeper

who am I kidding? I haven’t slept a wink
since I heard they were dying by midnights
poor Cinderella just lost a damn shoe
while they were losing their hope in the street fights
does anybody care? cries the heart in my chest
what they hell can I do, scoffs my mind
we’re bored and we’re restless, say my hands and feet
and my spirit conceived shakes alive

refuse all those flattering words dripped with honey
they just becomes sticky and cling to their money
and electric blankets, which burn you alive when you’re not watching
and the alarm screams, wake up, oh, sleeper

I do not know Him

One of my least favorite parables is the parable of the talents. The master gives a sum of money to 3 servants in proportion to how much he trusts them. 2 invest it, come back with double the original amount, and the last one comes back with the same amount. The master is happy with the first 2, and angry with the last, giving the last amount to the first and throwing the 3rd servant out into the darkness. I always thought that was mean.

3 years ago, reading the parable again, I disliked it on a new level. The 3rd servant says, "Lord, I knew you were a hard man...and I was afraid...so I buried it." He didn't freaking lose it. He was worried that he'd use it in appropriately or waste it or WHO KNOWS, and so he puts it in a safe place and then gives it back. No harm no foul, right? Maybe he wasn't good with money. Maybe his dad didn't teach him about investments. But the master gets mad, calls him lazy and throws him into the darkness. I became afraid.

Tonight, I read it again, and prepared myself to become sad/convicted/depressed. And I heard a phrase I had not heard before: Enter into the joy of your Master.

This is the response he gives the first two servants. Enter into the joy of your Master. The joy?? The Master had joy? That was part of his character? He has...joy? And the poor, 3rd servant says, "I knew you were a hard man..." I became disheartened. I felt bad for him.

Did he really know his master? Did he really know him? Did he know that his master had joy at all, or did the servant percieve his Master as a cruel, ruthless, perfectionist ruler? Did he know him? Did He know about this joy that was waiting for him? Did he know there was joy at all?

Everytime I read this parable, I identify with that 3rd servant. First in feeling God is mean, 2nd in feeling God is to be feared (like, hide under the bed feared), and finally in realizing that I do not know my God to be a God of love, of joy...that He is waiting to make my joy full, abundantly full. I'm so afraid He's going to get mad at me, criticize how I use the talents/gifts He's given me. Not thinking that he wants to rejoice in my rejoicing as I use them.

Lord, too often I've come to you like a child to the principle's office. Too often have I hidden away, afraid to pick up the glory you await to bestow, going through all the reasons how it might be misused or abused. Too often I have seen you as a hard man, an impatient man, who is looking at his watch frustrated that I've wasted more time in doing what I ought not to do with what you provided. And yet I haven't even moved yet.

Oh, Lord, that I would know you more.


Sonnet XXX - Elizabeth Barrett Browning
I see thine image through my tears to-night,
And yet to-day I saw thee smiling. How
Refer the cause?—Beloved, is it thou
Or I, who makes me sad? The acolyte
Amid the chanted joy and thankful rite
May so fall flat, with pale insensate brow,
On the altar-stair. I hear thy voice and vow,
Perplexed, uncertain, since thou art out of sight,
As he, in his swooning ears, the choir's Amen.
Beloved, dost thou love? or did I see all
The glory as I dreamed, and fainted when
Too vehement light dilated my ideal,
For my soul's eyes? Will that light come again,
As now these tears come—falling hot and real?

to live deliberately among the chaos

I've been reminded a lot of mortality lately. A couple people, friends of friends of friends, have passed away tragically. Young, active, energetic people like myself. Passionate for life and helpin others. Forgive me if I sound rude, but much like I pictured as a child that princesses must be thin and singers, I had a weird fantasy that passionate driven people do not die tragically. It didn't happen to people who were being proactive in the world, following God's call on their life, on fire for their purpose.

I knew I was wrong...and now I know even more.

It has caused me to become extremely discontent with my life or at least the idea that I am sitting on my butt updating a facebook page or writing a blog instead of outside these 4 walls living...LIVING. I want to make sure that if I'm the next to go, that I am living my life to it's fullest in the way that makes me most alive and gives God the most glory.

I want to go down singing. Not swinging. Singing.

Last Saturday's show was great. People came out, had a good time, sang along to A Man and His Plant, and being backed by In the Wake of Giants was freaking awesome. United Harvest Workers Union made me want to spin in circles. I really love this.

Today, I had a long debate with a couple very good friends about selling merchandise at the next show. After careful deliberation, it was decided that I would sell t-shirts, necklace pendants, and CDs, and possibly stickers. Perhaps this sounds pretentious as I'm not well known or touring right now. But even talking about it casually made my heart expand in excitement and love. And so I will do do it.

I'm tired of being scared or nervous about the next step. I'm ready to go. I'm not afraid to die if it means I'm really living when it happens.

paused.

Picture this: You're looking on Facebook and you come across the page of a past fling, interest, boyfriend (girlfriend for you male readers out there). You haven't thought about this person for a while, and you frankly have no residual feelings. And then you learn: he's married. And a feeling comes over you. it isn't anger. isn't bitterness. isn't let down. isn't even joyful. isn't happy. it just...is. it's as if time and breath have stopped (not dramatically, just stopped) and you think, "huh. wow. that just happened." and then, within 3-5 seconds, everything picks up and you continue with your day.

A friend and I were trying to think of a word for this a month or so ago. And then, in a conversation today, the word organically appeared.

"How have you been, Elise?"
"Paused."

paused. it's an almost nameless, emotionless sensation with a lot of weight. and it's how I feel now.

2 weeks ago, I felt chapter 22 in "The Biography of Elise Hindmarsh" close. I am now staring at the first page of Chapter 23. And I feel nothing. No excited expectation. No dread of disappointment. Honestly, I feel very little emotion at all except the anxiety that I feel very little emotion. I'm not one to usually have small emotions.

i feel paused. air has stopped. time has stopped. relationships, growth, learning, contribution has stopped. the earth's rotation must have stopped. everything feels suspended. like the scene in The Truman Show where all the actors are in place but no one is moving, awaiting the director's cue.

i'm waiting for him to say action, too.

I'm a Mac...and I've got a Dirty Secret

Security Blanket - New Song

I am small
I am weak
I am angry
I am not meek

and I fall
and I fall
and I fall
and I fall

and I will lie down and dwell in peace
for you alone, oh lord, make me dwell in safety

I grow tired
I grow old
I am too open
I am too cold

and I fall
and I fall
and I fall
and I fall

and I will lie down and dwell in peace
for you alone make my dwell in safety

I am lonely
I’m out of breath
I am amazed
you’re with me yet

when I fall
when I fall
when I fall
when I fall

I will lie down and dwell in peace
for you alone make my dwell in safety

Blog rules: Stick with your topic

Apparently accordin to blog rules, you should try to write blogs that stick with your blog's title theme. Mine is Beyond Purgatory, the sense that no one should live a mundane, complacent life.

I'm not sure my posts have flowed under that theme.

However, as I reflect back on the last couple days, I've had several things happen that are very extraordinary, and yet there were no flashing cameras, fireworks invovled. But oh, they made my heart so happy.

1. forgiveness. This is always a good thing. I feel like ordinary life would mean either remain bitter or forget anything ever happened. It's an extraordinary thing to find the balance between hurt and healing.

2. dialogue. I've had several conversations over the last couple days in which i have whole heartedly disagreed with a person and yet anger, fists, and pride did not rear its ugly head (at least that I was aware of.) I think it's an extraordinary thing to be able to talk, stand firm, be open to hear and love the person, and walk away feeling slightly more humbled and yet confident. Ordinarily, one might scream and yell and leave in a huff.

High volume does not always equal fantastic (a reference to fireworks or 100 piece marching bands).

3. meaningful accomplishment. it's one thing to sing a song. it's another thing to have someone say that it encourages them. it's one thing to work with children with autism. it's another thing to have a parent thank you with a loss for words. it's one thing to touch base with a friend. it's another thing to realize why that person means so much and to see God keeping the connection flowing despite months of non-contact.

perhaps one day i'll be able to write on this blog how I didn't settle for leading worship but performed in front of about the 1,000 people. or the platinum record i recieved instead of giving away cds. or meeting the president instead of a stranger who needed a smile. or walking on water instead of drinking it. (Or would I want things to change that way?) regardless, my life is far from ordinary and life jump starts me from complacency, if I allow myself to look with the eyes of Christ, and dedicate even a water glass to His glory. Christ made all things extraordinary in his power (minus going to the bathroom perhaps).

live beyond purgatory. don't get stuck or resign to apathy. but if you can't change your circumstance, ask Christ to change your heart and mind and soul in that circumstance, and let the sactification and extraordinary-fication begin.

On My Bones

My suggestion at reading this blog is to play video and read the blog while listening to the song. Sets the tone.

Ezekiel 37: Valley of Dry Bones
God asked the prophet, "Can these bones live?"
The prophet, in a sense, asked God, "Lord, you know."

It's a bit of an ambiguous answer, one that demonstrates either a cunning way to cop-out, like the typical "what do YOU think?" or a humble recognition that God is the only one who knows the answer to seemingly hopeless impossibilities. I wonder what would have occurred if Ezekiel had said, "Nope, it's impossible for those dried up, scattered bones to live." Would the Lord have proven him wrong, or in dismay, allowed Ezekiel's unbelief to be the self-fulfilled prophecy turn reality?

"I will cause breath to enter you, that you may come to life."

Even with sinew (the equipment), bones (the structure) and skin (the appearance, facade), breath was needed to bring this army to life. What does it mean to have the breath of God? To be one with Him? I remember reading stories as a child with my head on my dad's chest, and I'd change my breathing pattern to match his rhythm. It was such an intimate exchange, co-existing in inhaling the same breath, and exhaling the same waste. Is that what it means? How does one lay on the chest of the Heavenly Father?

"And the bones came together, bone to its bone."

In its right place. Originally scattered. What if the Lord had told Ezekiel, put the bones together and then I'll act. I probably would have failed miserably. Most bones look the same to me. And yet the Lord spoke through Ezekiel, and all the bones joined in their right place. And yet, although I know I am helpless to form creation, I think I'm brilliant to put my life back together. I run away, to put my heart, my mind, my soul back together and come back looking like a Picasso painting: all the right pieces, perhaps beautiful, but pretty awkward looking. Love, worship, dedicate your heart, mind, and soul to the Lord. Maybe that doesn't mean "Fix it, and then bring it to him." A broken and a contrite heart. I'm glad I don't have to be a non-blemished 1 year old lamb to be an acceptable offering to the Lord.

All this reflection started after reading Oswald Chamber's daily devotion on this passage. He wrote (among other things), "The degree of hopelessness I have for others come from never realizing that God has done anything for me. Is my own personal experience such a wonderful realization of God's power and might that I can never have a sense of hopelessness for anyone else I see?"

He continues, "When God wants to show you what human nature is like separated from Himself, He shows it to you in yourself."

I saw wrath last night. Pure wrath. It boiled up inside of me, water streaming down my face, fingers bent into claws, heart pounding, brain bursting at the seams. For an entire day, it ate me alive. I woke up in the morning completely tense head to toe. My voice was lowered 1 octave. I had seen dry bones and I was glad.

"Son of Man, can these bones live?"
- No, Lord, because they don't deserve it. They only could, and should, remain dead.

My anger was my revelation of the human nature separated from Christ. Apart from the Lord, we are not only God's enemies, but man's. Apart from Christ's forgiveness, we crucify Him daily and demand Pilate to crucify each other. Die for your sins!

And isn't this shown in the semantic twist of the Golden rule?

I'll do to you what you've done to me. This is the law.
Do unto others as you'd have them to do you. This is love.

Without Christ, at eternity, I'd bear the wrath of God.
Without Christ, on earth, I'd further the wrath of men.

I read a sermon last night by Martin Luther King, Jr. (1957) entitled, "Loving Your Enemies." He ended his sermon with these words:

So this morning, as I look into your eyes, and into the eyes of all of my brothers in Alabama and all over America and over the world, I say to you, "I love you. I would rather die than hate you." And I'm foolish enough to believe that through the power of this love somewhere, men of the most recalcitrant bent will be transformed. And then we will be in God?s kingdom. We will be able to matriculate into the university of eternal life because we had the power to love our enemies, to bless those persons that cursed us, to even decide to be good to those persons who hated us, and we even prayed for those persons who despitefully used us.

I want to breathe in the breath of God so that I may live, not exhale the fires of hell to condemn others (and myself) to death.

Oh this love has been life to these bones.

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?

To those who had plans for me

i've become inconsistent
i've stopped keeping my word
this new course of action has taken yet another turn
i'm afraid i'll let you down
i'm afraid i'll be wrong
i'm afraid
i'm afraid
i'm afraid
i'm afraid
but i need to move on
i'll probably see you around
i hope it isn't weird
i'd say i'm most afraid to lose you
but it's your opinion that i fear
and i hope you still love me
and say nice things about me
as i learn to love me too
i wonder what it's like to disagree with you
and for my answer to be true

long on butterflies, short on cocoons

I saw the butterfly flutter by
and marveled at its tapestry
of colors I would have never paired
yet danced together beautifully

so often I see butterflies
and forget the once upon a times…

a season ago I would have seen
the caterpillar inching by
or perhaps to say more accurately
I would have not seen nor asked why

such small insignificant larvae
rarely catch a second eye

the tiny creature, unmajestic
some girls squirm and turn to run
but he keeps inching, crawling, searching
for the tree branch to be hung

the loveliest metamorphoses
begin with death upon a tree

the caterpillar to the butterfly
logic (not science) says it must not be
magic (not faith) says it’s a mystery
hope (not resignation) says this is me

thus I glorify the butterfly
and cherish the one it’s locked inside