I cannot sleep.

It's nearly midnight and sleep seems to be the furthest thing from my brain's agenda. Life can sometimes get so exhausting that when you finally have the chance to rest, your mind can't shut off long enough to drift off. In the meantime, here's what's new with Brea's life (other than no sleep):

1.) I am preaching at Dad's church every Wednesday night until Easter. The entire community is doing a study called "one month to live," and dad asked me to teach it at our church. It is really cool to have the opportunity, but I feel like I am a little rusty on the preaching front. It's been a while and a lot of things have happened since I last spoke publicly. Yes, last week went well, but what if that was all I had left? It's forcing me to focus on faith more than I have in recent months.

2.) I am no longer in training to run a 5k. I have Achilles Tendonitis and my doctor says no running or working out my lower body for two months. I think his prognosis is a bit much, but I don't want to be stuck with a torn Achilles Tendon...it didn't turn out too well for Achilles. My doctor told me that I need to be wearing shoes with about two inches of height. His recommendation was not a new pair of Manolo Blahniks, but rather COWBOY BOOTS. I do own a pair for wear once a year when the rodeo is in town, but try not to make a habit out of sporting the Luccase boots. He told me to put a sign on that says, "I'm not really a cowgirl, this is a prescription." Good luck with that one Dr. Perkins.

3.) Tomorrow is Lauren's birthday. I bought her the world's greatest present. I will post pictures tomorrow in case she reads this tonight.

The meds are kicking in I think....let's keep our finger's crossed I can sleep.

A New Way of Thinking

I cannot imagine life without school. Honestly, I do not have a memory without school. I have few memories without college courses. Starting concurrent enrollment the month after I obtained my driver's license, I have been pursuing higher education for seven and a half years. My transcript is pages long and makes the registrar giggle each time she prints it off, seeing as I am currently taking courses at a two-year college. (a typical "graduated" transcript from this school is one-half of one page long) Nevertheless I am proud of my diverse academic interests and thankful I have had the opportunities and means to pursue them.

Perhaps one of the reasons I am compelled to start this blog is to clear my thoughts. As I was studying for my history degree, I felt my soul being fed just by reading my text books. I was surrounded with philosophy, with stories of women who forged their way against authority's rule to be come canonized or fight against men, and win. I reflected on theories, I immersed myself in these heroine tales, my mind was always moving faster than I could write. I loved drawing applications to the present day from events of centuries past. I was privileged, I loved every moment. (save that one terrible oral mid-term. in medieval history).

This is very different from the way I now feel in school, studying the functions of the neural system, chemistry, and primarily MATH make me use an entirely different side of my brain and my brain which does not enjoy coming out of hibernation. This is hard. For the first time in my life I can actually say that school has become very difficult for me, burying myself in my studies doesn't even seem to help things. Regardless of how many times the pharmacist explains the conversion of atoms to moles, moles to molecules, molecules to who knows what I cannot seem to keep it straight. (then there's the fact that the rhesus factor just makes me want a reeses really bad.) This is a strange feeling for me. It is not something beyond my ability I am assured, but these early mornings and late nights are beginning to really add up.

Last night I spoke at a city-wide church event promoing a series that is going to be taught in all the community churches over the next month. Not to appear cocky, but speaking publicly comes so naturally for me. I hate to admit I was not prepared at all. I really had nothing to say when I got to the event because I had spent the entire afternoon reading about stoichiometry, but when I get up to speak, things are natural. I'm in my element...or maybe I just have an unruly attachment to microphones. Things like that make you wonder, question if you are doing the right thing. I just have to trust that my intuition and God's leading have led me to the right place at this point in my life. I am excited to be a nurse, I just have to endure another seven weeks of chemistry hell and a summer of college algebra to get there...not too bad for a rewarding career with endless possibilities. I still have my history degree to cling to, and I am proud to tell people I am a historian. An expert in Hildegard as a matter of fact. I am lucky to be able to study and travel, and I'm excited for the things to come. It just so happens that right now I need out outlet for my words, so I chose to blog.

Well...I'd better get, another medical terminology test awaits me this morning. A morning met without diet coke or McDonalds breakfast...oh how I love lent.

BL

This guy is amazing.

Lent

Before my collegiate experience at SNU, I had never observed (or even known of) the liturgical season of Lent. I remember the first time I heard it spoken of at a school chapel, people giving up things and scattering ashes on their heads. I even called my evangelical minister father to ask him what in the world was going on, he was more dumbfounded than I was. The megachurch I was attending at the time didn't have ashes on Wednesday, so I thought I could go about my way, nothing being done here was mandated by the Bible...("maybe this is somewhere in the Apocrypha?" I thought.)

I, as many college students, went through something of a crisis of belief during those formative years. I began by attending services at a church very much like my fathers. It was comfortable, I felt secure, but inside I still imagined what was outside this four-walled pentecostal box I had lived in for 20 years. Yet, it was not some conversion experience which brought my questions, it was the study of my discipline, History, that led me to seek out answers. I won't bore you with the details of my church roaming, but there was an innate part of me that desired to be a part of something larger than myself, something larger than my generation, to seek a connection to the history of the faith I so deeply cherished.

Since then, I have come to honor church traditions with great reverence. Ash Wednesday, however, has become a day that I dread. I should be excited that Easter is approaching and spring break is soon coming, but still...dread is all I feel. I used to make many grand promises, more out of desire for men to applaud my efforts than anything else, but those promises made for other people always fail. I remember my junior year of college when I made the decision to give up caffeine. (If you do not know me well this is a good time for definition. Caffeine is the only reason I graduated Magna from SNU. Between sleeping disorders, being overextended, and my inability to say now, caffeine was a major part of my life, from coffee, to Diet Coke, to Vivarin I'd use it all. I actually received a case of 50 cans of red bull for christmas this year...all of which are gone. Needless to say, Caffeine is my drug of choice.) I remember the first morning I woke up, felt "okay" drank about ten Caffeine Free Diet Cokes and hoped somewhere they were hiding some other energy agent. The next morning I woke up with the most severe migraine headache of my life, complete with vomiting. I missed school and took a relpax (a nice little $$ pill you can take for migraines which is loaded with caffeine). In my vain attempt to appear religious to others, I made myself deathly sick, missed coursework, and ended up drinking diet coke anyway. (God wouldn't want me to die during Lent, right?)

This year I sat out my fast, no diet pop or fast food. As I sat in the chapel meditating before communion, I reflected on what this season truly means. I dread Lent because it represents death. Dying to whatever it is that creates separation between us and the life we are commissioned to have. I should have felt good about myself, for Brea Little to give up Diet Coke is a major death, it will be hard, I am making an effort. Then God hits me over the head.

I started to write down the things which fill my life, my priorities, the things which dominate my thoughts. It wasn't "school" that came to my mind, or "drinking too much diet coke," it hit much deeper. We as a culture are consumed with wanting what we don't have, and never appreciating what we do. I am not exception to this. We spend hours on social networking sites seeing what others are doing and wondering how we can get what they have or making ourselves feel somewhat accomplished that our lives are more together than someone else's. We create false images of these people. We imagine their perfect lives with their perfect jobs, perfect mates, and perfect pets. We imagine them running the Memorial Marathon and going on extravagant vacations. We create the delusion that "if i could only have this," "if i could only graduate with my next degree," "if i could only meet the right person," "if only, if only, if only." I am reminded of Anthony De Mello:

There is not a single moment in your life when you do not have everything you need to be happy. Think for a minute. The reason why you are unhappy is because you are focusing on what you do not have rather than on what you have right now.

Happiness is a choice, who we are is not to be "found", but rather created. As I sat in the chapel preparing to receive the ashes and be reminded of my own mortality I realized something important, "what you have does not determine what I want, although I often want what you have simply because you have it." I used to envy girls with seemingly perfect boyfriends until I realized at the points in my life I was envious, I the perfect man for me could have broke down my door and I would not have known it. I was so sold out to delusions of what happiness looks like. I was challenged Wednesday, perhaps more than giving up carbonized drinks with artificial sweetners, to stop wearing myself out wanting and wishing. There is not a single moment in my life where I do not have everything I need to be happy.

Happiness is accepting and appreciating your place. Right now I am back in my hometown, taking classes to apply to nursing school. There is not a day that goes by that I wish I would have made this decision earlier, or that I was already a nurse. But today I have reason to be happy. I have reason to celebrate the degree I have and the future career I will one day have. I have seen so much of the world at such a young age, but good things could happen to me over and over and never register if I keep my mind focused on what I don't have.

De Mello tells a story about a group traveling through beautiful countryside on a bus, heading to a particular destination. The country is some of the most beautiful in all the world, yet they never see it because they have the blinds on their windows closed. Life, even life in Western Oklahoma looks a lot different when you open the windows and allow yourself to appreciate beauty around you. I am a Southern, but not a country girl. I hate the outdoors, I cherish the bitter winter months, and I despise country music. On my way to school today though, I made an effort to find beauty in this geographical place. Driving home I saw two ponies near a barn. Adorable, playful, and completely happy with the small plot of land they call home. They do not dream of a better life, of a bigger barn, but enjoy one another's company and enjoy the sunshine. Oh to live our lives wide open. To let go of the attachments that have bound us for years.

John 12:24-26 reads, "Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains jut a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there will my servant be also. Whoever serves me, the Father will honor."

May seeking the honor of Heaven challenge us this Lenten season.

(I've got to go, breakfast at Tiffany's is on)

Do I really have something to say?

After two years out of my first college degree and a year of vain attempts at self discovery, I have decided to start blogging. I realize that, save a few close, no one will probably read my musings on life in small town Oklahoma, but I feel it is important for me to share information when I receive it, give a voice to the things in life I have learned not to repeat, and celebrate the beauty of the everyday. So, for those of you reading, thank you. I hope that in this conversation with the universe we may learn from one another, and find what we are looking for.