I'd Like My God Back Now.....Thanks.

I'm not really sure how it's become so easy to dismiss feelings. My professor today looked across the table and said, "Allie, do you feel that? These emotions in this room are so full. It's a great fulness." I didn't feel it. I didn't feel the room and I didn't feel the people around me and I didn't feel myself. I stopped eating my lunch and inhaled through my nose. It was like someone gave me permission to stop going, going, going and start enjoying and sensing.

This whole past week I've been so fixated on getting things done, going to this big event and then that one and making sure I get to work on time and home and hopefully...maybe...get more than 5 hours of sleep before I have to wake up and write that paper before class. It's hard. It's rough. And I'm just realizing now that I didn't call my Mom again today....agh, I get so frustrated when I forget the simplest of things and the things that mean the most to me. I'm not even able to enjoy this time because I just want to get it over with. I just want to be done with the going and start the enjoying.

I expressed all of these feelings to Alex a few weeks ago and he said, "I think that you think you need to not be working so much or not having homework in order to enjoy life, when really, it's not like that. You can enjoy your life even when you're running everywhere and being crazy busy with the very things that make your life, YOUR life."

He's right. I did think that. I never used to...I used to LOVE my life whether it was crazy busy or slow and simple. I loved it because it was life. I've been struggling to figure out what has changed in me that contributed to this lack of zest for life and I think I'm finally ready to admit it to myself and others; my spirit.

I've come to this weird crossroad in my perspective of religion in which I see Christianity as naive and hypocritical. I believe in my God and I have a faith that I trust in deeply, but I don't want to associate it with other people's God because I'm not sure we see our God's in the same way. My God is an all encompassing and compassionate God that never lets go of my hand, even when I let my grip get loose. My God doesn't turn a shoulder to people because of their mistakes, orientation, race or religion. My God is an understanding God, one that forgives and loves despite the deepest pain and heartache. My God is a perfect model of what people should try to be, even if it's not rewarding or glamorous.

When I hear or see some Christians describe what their God looks like or believes, I wonder who their God is. It's confusing to me, and I have more recently, instead of trying to figure it out, just gave up and became hopeless that maybe my God doesn't exist or maybe I believe in something besides the God I'm supposed to.

There is a scene I always return to when I feel this way and it's one I experienced in a dream in high school (I know...kind of voo-doo, weirdo, but honestly had a large impact on my image of God). I walked through a red door in a blank room, and there is just a chair with Jesus sitting in it (or someone who looks like the Jesus in all those pictures from Sunday school). I sat at his feet (barefoot....good choice God). I looked in his eyes and saw the whole world differently and then he touched my face, gently. His eyes started to smile and I knew everything he was trying to say to me without him ever saying a word and I knew that everything was going to be okay. I knew that there is something beyond me and beyond this world. I knew that there was something precious about this moment and that this moment would get me through every hardship, every painful experience and every time I felt lost.

I just wish I knew if the rest of the world has ever felt this way about their God.

Gym Membership

Joined a gym last night so I won't crack my head open while running on the ice.

I've always hated gym memberships, I wanted to be outside in the open, fresh air. However, I live in the Midwest...let's be realistic in saying that 4 months of the year it's icy, then a month of mud and another one or two that are just too dang cold.

Here's to caving in to the city life.

There's Mourning in Minnesota Today

A Packer fan eating at Fat Lorenzo's told me that it's never been hard to be a Packer fan living in MN until this year. I'm going to agree with that, and yet I still invited 14 Vikings fans into our living room to watch the Vikings/Saints game yesterday. Luckily the game turned out in my favor, but something happened that I wasn't expecting during this Viking/Packer fan interaction; I actually started to feel bad for them. Never in my life have I felt remorse for a Viking fan and their cursed team. I've dated two Vikings fans in life and now am marrying one of them, but I have never even considered feeling sad when the Vikings lose.

Although, when all is said and done, all the respect I lost for Brett Favre is now restored. He looked like the only Viking that WANTED to win last night.

As a Packer fan in this foreign land, many people have taunted me, mocked me and questioned me about Favre leaving the Holy Land for Minnesota. I tell them I am a Packer fan, not a Favre fan. I am loyal to the decision made by my team and now my quarterback is Rogers. I'm proud to say that. As far as Favre goes, I've grown up watching him love the game of football and that is what I most respected about him. For him, it was always about the love of the game, not about the money or breaking records. However, watching his drama play out through the media and skipping out of training camp with the Vikes, I was so disheartened as I realized, "This might be just for the show." I watched him this year bitter as ever, feeling betrayed not because he started playing for the Vikings, but that the very thing I've loved and respected him for my whole life was gone; his heart for football.

Although Brett, as a loyal Packer fan to a former Packer, after last night I saw your passion come back. I watched you carry a team that didn't want it bad enough, that didn't have enough motivation or who just questioned themselves too much, but I watched you still almost carry them to a victory single handedly. Thank you Brett for great display of football last night...even if it's for the rivaled team.

As for the rest of you Vikings players and for the MN fans, you will never make it to a Super Bowl if you don't believe that you can. It's not about the $11 million dollar quarterback or the loudest stadium in the NFL, it's about the passion for the game.