Does Passion Breed Discontent?

I believe with all of my heart that the Lord places talents and gifts and desires that lead to passions in our life for a purpose, but recently I was having a conversation with a good friend and the idea of being a passionate person came up. She asked me if I thought that I was a passionate person. She'd always thought that she was a passionate person, but recently she was wondering if she was, or what it meant to be passionate.

So, first off, what does it mean to be passionate? Well, the dictionary defines passionate as 'capable of, affected by, or expressing intense feeling. So, in our case, being passionate should be thought of as the singular desire to be physically, mentally, and even spiritually driven by an idea, a goal, or a person. This is where the question comes in, "does passion breed discontent?"

Is true contentedness possible in our lives as Christians? If in no other area of my life, I am called to be in a passionate relationship with Jesus Christ. The goal and hope in this relationship is that, in my passion for Christ, I will earnestly seek to know Him more all of the time. As Christ is unknowable, in his entirety, this should be a relentless pursuit, with every discovery of truth and fulfilled promise sparking in me a desire to learn more, to love more, and to know more of my Savior. Therefore, my passionate love for Christ will, or should, always create in me a desire for a more vibrant and dynamic relationship. I should never settle with how much I know, but rather push on to know more.

When it comes down to it, when it comes to spiritual things, maybe contentedness is the wrong word. I believe that I am able to be content in where the Lord has me on any given day. If I am seeking after the Lord and His will for my life, I need to trust the Lord and rest in the truth that he has a plan for my life, to prosper me, and give me a hope and a future. The danger grows when we begin to be complacent in our walk with the Lord. Complacency lets us stagnate in the spot where we were, to rely on past lessons, our church involvement and the knowledge we have, rather than the pursuit of Christ-likeness. Passionate love of Jesus Christ should put us in a place where we want Christ's best for our lives and we are actively seeking after that best (Matt 6:25-34)!

I argue that feelings of passion toward an earthly goal or the development of a talent or love are always going to disappoint in the end. It may even be a way to avoid where our passions should truly lie. If we are passionate about Christ, then our earthly pursuits should always be tied to our spiritual pursuits. Passionate diligence in reaching an earthly goal will not be fulfilling in the end, however, that same pursuit, of the same goal with a heavenly perspective will always be fulfilling. A love of some thing or talent or goal needs to be informed by our love of Jesus Christ and what He wants us to do with it. Only then, will our passions leave us in a place that we can be completely content, and only because Christ is the fulfilling presence in our lives.

Mr. P's Discount Tires

What do a Buzz Lightyear look-alike, a crazy lady, a man in a Jagermeister jacket, two women carrying identically hideous Dooney and Burke purses all have in common? Well, let me tell you. They all lost precious hours of their life waiting with Beth and me in the "lobby" of Mr. P's Discount Tires. Hours never to be retrieved.

I spent a portion of Black Friday (the day after Thanksgiving) with my friend Beth getting a new rim and tire put on her beloved Mercury Tracer station wagon, otherwise known as Gustavus (with the emphasis on the goose). We will never be recommending Mr. P's Discount Tires to our friends. It was a horrible experience made better only by the composition of haikus as we sat and observed the crazy cacophony going on around us.

Let the haiku's speak for the experience:

Beth's car got some flats
Mr. P's is frightening
I'm scared for my life

Jagermeister's mad
I'm smelling like an ash tray
Thank you, Mr. P's

Shady, Shady place
Mr. P's needs a face-lift
People keep coming

Whole foods sounds yummy
Mr. P's makes me pensive
Odd man keeps cursing

Eye Candy walks in
We were getting discouraged
He brightened our day

There you go...they speak for themselves. Hope you enjoyed.

My friends are having babies!

Top: This is Amara Daub. Jake and Heidi (Kiehlbauch) Daub's little girl. She is a spitting image of her momma.
Middle: We were all at a baby shower for Jeremy and Ruth (Plagemann) Sohre's new baby, Connor Andrew.
Bottom: This is Connor Andrew Sohre, Eva Talley, RJ Smalkowski, and Amara Daub!

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

Where should I start?

Maybe with the bad. Today, in church, the team that I am on was supposed to lead worship. Rehearsal usually begins at 7:45am, before the service. This is not usually a problem for me. True, sometimes I get there with no make-up on or my hair just out of rollers, but I'm usually punctual.

Not so this morning. Do you ever have one of those mornings where, you have no idea how it was that the alarm didn't wake you up? This was one of those. The alarm was set for 6:25am and I got a call at 8:25 waking me up! That is one of the worst feelings for a musician. Needless to say, I flew out to church with hair askew and morning breath. I did not play for the congregational singing, which is what I usually do, but there was an ensemble piece that I had to be there for. I feel like an idiot. And I still haven't figured out what happened with the alarm (it was set for the right time in the am and it was still on when I got up), I don't know. There you have the bad. Oh, and I killed a rabbit with my car yesterday.

Now this, this is good news. Maybe not for all of you, but definitely for me. I went bowling with some friends last night and I scored my highest score of my life. Bowling, for me, is generally a social occasion. I don't make it a priority to learn the technique or lingo or whatnot. Don't laugh...promise me you won't...I bowled a 120! That was exciting for me, truly exciting.


More good...I went to a new church tonight. Now, now, don't worry. I'm not planning on leaving or switching churches, but I've been curious about this church for a while. They meet on Sunday evenings and are located on the east side of Milwaukee...I love the east side! Epikos is a small church and young in a lot of ways, but I truly enjoyed the service. The congregation seemed quite young, the worship leaders were young, and the head pastor was super young (for a head pastor). The music was good, the preaching was solid, straight from the Word of God, and people were warm and friendly.

Now the ugly, but have no fear there is a happy ending. You know how little kids drool when they are teething and if it is winter their chins get all chapped up? Well, this weekend I had an allergic reaction (I think to the wool in a new sweater) and my chin ended up chap city! It made me feel very self conscious, very. However, I have to make a product endorsement right here. Andra Sina, a skin care company from California that is owned by a friend of my aunt, developed an aloe based healing cream that I am 100% sold on! My chin, in a matter of 24 hours went from super painful to almost gone. Simply amazing!

There you have it...the good, the bad, and the ugly. All wrapped up in one neat and tidy blog.

*This blog is dedicated to my brother and sister-in-law in Italy, here's to the details!*

The "!"

I think I've fallen victim to the monster of exclamation over-use. I was looking at my past blogs and I realized that I'd ended all but one of my blogs with exclamation points. If you had to make a judgment about who I am by reading my blog, I think you would come away with the wrong picture, all because of those exclamation points. If we talked, I mean had a real face-to-face conversation, all of said conversations would not end with a "WA-HOO!" kind of sentiment. Don't get me wrong, I get involved and invested in my interactions, I'm just not one of those "super" excited types. I think I was using them because I was enthused about the subject matter, (or maybe to be finishing the blog), but not because I'm feeling and exuberant yell inside. Is it proper to use them if you are excited, or does it have be an actual exclamation? Maybe a healthy dose of enthusiasm is all that is needed for a well placed exclamation point. Any thoughts?

The Packers beat who? Oh yeah, the Vikings!

I'm sure that this was one of the very best Sundays of the season. Church this morning was a pleasure and an encouragement to live my life as is pleasing unto the Lord. Because I am fighting a bit of a head cold, I came home and curled up back in bed. I had a glorious hour and a half of napping, followed by a tasty dinner and the second half of a fantastic Packers-Vikings game. After the game we had celebratory caffe mochas and some time reading the paper. Fellowship time with some of the church family came next and my day ended with some friends at Starbucks playing the beloved game of Speed Scrabble.

I have just a small tribute to the Packers after their exciting victory over the Vikings. A haiku:

Favre and the Packers
Defeated the Viking clan
In their house you won

Way to go Packers, it was a fun game to watch. I always like the ones that are nailbiters. Well, that or run-away victories! Between the Packers (who seem to be improving, knock-on-wood) and the Badgers (who are doing fantastic) football has been fun this fall.

The week in review seems pretty routine, but it was a good week, overall (If we ignore the cold). Impact on Wednesday night was good. The team that I am on lead worship this week. I was a little nervous because we had minimal rehearsal time for this week, but we played with a very scaled back group and I thought it went well. It was just Beth and Pete singing, Pete on guitar, Greg on drums, and my violin. Really chilled out and laid back. We sang some of our team's favorites and I really felt like I got to worship with the whole congregation. We've revived an older song recently and have played it a few times lately. Wonderful, Merciful Saviour, just speaks truth about who God is and what he has done for us.

It is songs like that one that make me love music as a form of worship so much. Because music is such an emotional tool, it is a great way to intersect the truths that we can find in the text with the emotional connection we get because the text is set with music. The integration of knowledge and emotion is something that I've been learning a lot about in many different areas of my life and I think one of the most important is in the way I worship. As a musician, up in front of people, leading people into a spirit of worship, I have such a responsibility to bring the best text, the best music and most importantly a right view of God to the people I'm trying to help lead.

Anyways, that was one of the highlights of the week. I also taught lots of lessons (I love my job), had class (talked about Bach and Handel), played a 10pm soccer game (we lost, but I had a ton of fun), went to a birthday party (made a fantastic cheesecake), and went to the Heritage play (Beth was Asst. Director). Overall, a good week!

Hilton Head, SC

So, I really like it when people put pictures in their blogs. I haven't taken many pictures lately, but here is one from September. I joined Beth at a pastor's conference, on Hilton Head island, where she was helping lead worship. It was rough work, five days in a beach front resort, but somebody had to do it! This was the night the whole band went out for dinner by the marina. Great fellowship, great scenery, great week!

This is just a fun picture. We were on our way to go camping and our friend Quinn had a GPS. We were almost there and the next instruction was "In 500 feet, board the ferry." He said he had never heard the GPS say that before. Kinda fun. Beth and I thought that we should document the trip across the river.

Count 'em...ten!

I got ten, count them, ten hours of sleep last night. To put it simply, amazing! After three really short nights and a lot of miles on my car, I was spent. So, Saturday night I went to see a band play up in Milwaukee and I slipped my driver's license and credit card into my back pocket so I wouldn't have to keep track of a purse, smart move, right? After the ensuing late night, I had to be up and in the car at the crack of dawn to play a church gig in Chicago.

I had my trip all planned. First, I would eat my mug of oatmeal then I would pull off the freeway into the Lake Forest Oasis for a very large, very caffeinated, very hot, very wonderful jolt of liquid energy. And oh, was I looking forward to that latte! But, for those of you who are good at reading between the lines, you know what comes next. As I was about to pull off, I realized that my cash, my credit card, as well as my license were all in the back pocket of last night's jeans. AAAHHHHH! How frustrating. I can't even stand it. So, not only no coffee, but no license which turned me into a very careful driver. I wanted there to be no excuse to get pulled over, and, what if I ran out of gas. Heaven forbid! Anyways, I got to the job, and back home in one piece.

Then a birthday party for my twin, nine year old, first cousins, once-removed. These two crack me up, they are the very definition of string beans! Oh, to be nine again. I think that might be the very zenith of childhood. Still a little girl, but old enough to have some independence from mom. Getting lost in the fun of reading books, loving anything pink and sparkly, having a secret world up in a tree, building forts out of furniture and sheets...so wonderful. Being 26 has its perks though too!

My next project on the world wide web is to figure out how to make my blog pretty. I may need some help, but we'll see. I'd like to think that I've got the brain power to figure it out on my own, but when I have EPKS, computer genius living in my house, it's hard not to ask for help.

Its Monday of a busy week, but a friend of mine recently told me that he is trying to have a better attitude towards Mondays. They get such a bad rap. Think this way, a new week, another chance, a fresh start, a whole week ahead of you, rested from your weekend, what could go wrong? Instead of wishing that it was still Saturday afternoon, revel in the beginning of a new week. Especially on ten hours of sleep!