Writing

I'm writing a blog on writing. I think that's sufficiently ironic and hipster of me, and I therefore think that you should read it if you stumble across this as you travel about your day.

I could potentially insert a poetic quote here about why writing is so beautiful and wonderful, but I think I'd rather just lay it out myself. So here it goes:

Writing reveals the soul. It is the words that we desperately want to be heard, yet lack the confidence to say. It is those parts of ourselves that we wish we could find the words for at an earlier point in time, and yet never seem to possess. It is the power that we hold within ourselves to shape perception, merely through a few letters, spaces, punctuational marks, and symbols. It is our hearts, bared out on paper for the viewer to read, absorb, and potentially be changed by.

Books are particular, wouldn't you agree? As if each has a soul. We crave the ones that relate to our own the most. That's why a book on Bill Gate's life really has no appeal to me at all - I would rather die than read about a genius' love for computers and life to worldwide success in computer engineering. Reading about social justice though, or about the environment, or simply an adventure story, drama, or humorous fictional story is much more appealing, because these are things that relate to my heart. I have forever been drawn to bible verses about poverty, justice, and love for all, and so when I read Shane Claiborne, Tony Campolo, or Mother Teresa, then I empathize with them, with their pleas, with their calls for action and change. When I read about the environment, or about climate change, then I remember my childhood walks through the conservation area, running through waterfalls, camping in the middle of the woods where I heard the crickets, felt the mist from the waves of water crash against the nearby stones, smelled the smoke from the campfire, saw the Northern lights, tasted fresh blueberries straight from the bush. I remember my favourite professors, who were either radical environmental activists, calm and friendly urban planners, or passionate climate change political spokespeople. And it warms my heart.

Writing is more than words - it is the well-thought-out crafting of our souls, charged with our spiritual and emotional selves, that is bared to the world in hopes that someone will empathize with our hearts. It is our call, our collective tool to inspire, encourage, and motivate, to deconstruct and tear down, to empower. It is our hearts, our struggle, our passion, our ideas. Our quest to find truth.

We can tell our greatest stories. Our greatest lies. Our greatest tales of inspiration. And in everything, we reveal a bit of ourselves to the world.

Relationships 101

I've learned that no matter what, one of the most important things to any relationship, whether that be one of friendship, of family, of intimacy, is that each person feel strong as an individual before they approach another. Strength is exuded in self-confidence, in resting secure in your identity as you, in recognizing the power of your own actions and words, in recognizing your own contributions as valid (even if not only correct). You are happy in who you are, and there is no void that needs to be filled by another soul in order for you to maintain this happiness.

Perhaps, strength is also exuded in humility. In the recognition that you are not perfect, that you can never achieve perfection. The power of Christ is to give us the strength we need in spite of our weaknesses. And we can find strength in the knowledge that Christ already knows that we're weak - and accepts us, loves us, and died for us in spite of that knowledge.

If I can take a gender lens to this issue, then I think that this particular part of relationships can be hardest for women. Women are told from their childhood that they are the gentler sex, the sex that needs to be rescued, whose voice need never be heard, whose value rests in finding marriage to a strong male who will forever protect them. Males, in the opposite way, are told that they must be the protector in the relationship. They will save the day, they will make everything right, they will be strong for the both of them.

The church is, in particular, guilty of making women feel weak, in need of male rescuing, and voiceless. We are told that we cannot preach, we cannot teach, we cannot speak in church, that our advice, counsel, wisdom, or inspired words are less valuable than those of the males in the church. Women - you need to know that you are loved by God. That you are valuable. That alone, that in singleness, you are strong. We cannot define ourselves by someone else. We must define ourselves as a child of God, with equal ability to think, to act, to speak, to love, to teach, to preach. I do not believe that the way I am born should dictate what I can and cannot do. Nor do I think that's something that God wants to limit me with. God communicates with me daily, and I learn from Him daily through the Bible, through his church, through nature. I recognize myself as a child of God, who cannot earn her right to his grace, but only receive it as a gift of love in spite of my weaknesses. If I can find strength in Jesus, then I am complete. No man can do that - only God. Neither can I be the cause of strength for another - I don't have the power to hold someone else up, only God does.

For Christians, we need to learn to base our relationships in God. And most beautiful, I think that if we start a romantic relationship, both parties should have to fall in love with God first before they can reach the heart of the other and fall in love with them. I am a strong single female. I am loved by God. I will only enter into an intimate relationship if he exudes strength of self, and if he pursues God in order to reach my heart.

Peace.

INFJ

I did a Myers Briggs test today, and am creepily astonished at how accurate it is. Almost down to a tee. I feel that, perhaps, I know myself a whole lot better now. Including my bizarre and conflicting feelings of wanting to be around people, while also wanting to be by myself. It is strangely freeing to be able to put a name to this, and know that I am not a strange little bird.

Here is a few sites that describes my personality type! Introverted Intuitive Feeling Judging Typology; Wikipedia

And here's where you can do your own test. I highly recommend it. Myers Briggs Test