Always Show Humanity

"In everything I did, I showed you that by this kind of hard work we must help the weak, remembering the words the Lord Jesus himself said: 'It is more to blessed to give than to receive.'" ACTS 19:32. When I come home for the Holiday's, my mom has me go with her to Loaves and Fishes to feed the hungry. Loaves and Fishes is a wonderful place in downtown Sacramento. It runs a school for homeless children, Mustard Seed, and it provides food and resources for the needy. My mom goes with our church every other Friday. As a child I remember my mom having me donate toys and books to the kids at the school. My mom would always say she can see the 'face of God' in their faces. Revisiting this place as an adult, I saw it too. When you go to this place, it is in the middle of a bunch of warehouses, most of them abandon. Many of the homeless live either in the abandon buildings, along the railroad tracks or the park nearby. Two years ago, my job in the food line was to scoop ice cream. The problem with the ice cream this particular day, was it didn't have time thaw enough to scoop. So the line was getting backed up as I struggled to get the ice cream scoop to work. Surprisingly, it was the workers that were annoyed with me and not the homeless. In fact the homeless were encouraging. Here they were, dirty, alone and waiting for their one meal of the day, telling me I was doing a great job scooping the ice cream and to take my time and not listen to the other people who were being quite sassy with me to hurry up. I also heard my mom engage in genuine conversations with them about music, or books as they passed through the line. I saw more humanity in them, then I see just walking around on a day to day basis. It is our duty as Christians to not forget the forgotten. But not only that, to treat them with respect. In order for someone to go homeless, a string of terrible events have had to happen. Many of us come from such loving families and/or situations where our struggle would hopefully never bring us to the streets. But a lot of us don't have that option. The homeless are not just a faction that we either donate a check too, or maybe half-heartledly serve a dinner too once a year. When you are in the process of giving back, give them a smile too. Try hear what they have to say. You never know what one encouraging word can do to someone's spirit. And always show humanity.

Faith

By far, the most random thing that happened to me this past year was when I met a Medium. She told me, "I've never said this to anyone before, but you're whole being is faith, and it's beautiful." I believe in faith more than I believe in an organized religion. I feel nervous even admitting that. I have absolutely nothing against organized religion, in fact I'm fascinated by it. I love learning about everyone's beliefs systems. And the more I learn about Christianity - as a whole - the more I realize we all believe in the same thing, God is our Father, and he is an ever loving and forgiving Lord. Faith is such an interesting word. There's obviously a ton of definitions for it, but the most striking one I've read is "belief that is not based on proof". Now, as Christians we believe in God and we believe in the Bible. I was a history major in college, so I've studied the historicity of Jesus. I can go into all this at another time, but my point is, we have proof that there was a man named Jesus who lived among us and through his actions, made enough people believe, and preach to the point that seriously changed the world. Whether you believe or not, that's something we all can agree happened. What's tough is - what about now? What about today? Some people say they have seen God through dreams or He has appeared to them in some way. Some say when they pray they hear him. I can make no claims like that that for me. I have never seen or heard him. But I believe in Him. I have faith. Growing up my mom always encouraged me to live by my faith. We acted in our faith, by feeding the homeless, visiting convalescent homes, and giving our time, since financially we didn't have a lot. Whenever we go somewhere, like the ocean, or up to Lake Tahoe in the Sierra Nevada's my mom would look out the window and say "this is where I see God". Being in nature reassures my mom in her faith...even though God is not physically standing their welcoming us on our trip. For me, I see God in sunsets. I would probably see Him in sunrises but I don't get up that early. (That is a new goal of mine.) The way the sky changes and the colors that appear make me believe. I know there are scientific reason's behind it, but it is my faith that speaks to me in these moments. It's a calming feeling that no matter what is going on in my life, He is there. My favorite quote from the Bible is Ephesians 3:20. I wrote it down and have it on my refrigerator so I see it every day. "Now all glory to God, who is able, through his might power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think." Always and forever have faith.

Whoops...forgot about this, but let me explain why

Wow three years have gone by since I was that girl who was tired of being depressed. I was tired of being sad for myself. I was tired of it all. So I made a change, and the change I grabbed to was the one that defined my roots. Being positive. Sometimes being positive sucks. It's a choice. You can chose to be happy or to be sad. Back in January 2010 I was coming up on a full year of being unemployed - or "funemployed" as my generation named it, since at the time so many of us found ourselves without a job. My last post was about a double rainbow, and my mom saying it was a good omen. I had spent a year of my life, going on walks with my mother. An exact year- from April 2009 to April 2010. It started because I had reached so low in my life my mom kind of had to drag me outside. I had completely isolated myself from the world. And that is highly highly unusual and not like me. I, at the time had no other direction to go. I was trying to land a position in the same career, that is extremely competitive and at times unrealistic, but I kept trying and I kept getting denied. I kept getting rejected. I kept getting asked why I would leave a job--in the middle of a recession. I couldn't answer it. Because my truth was my truth and I looked stupid to the world. They didn't know what had happened at my last job, and I didn't know if I could ever explain it correctly, without it making me sound like a "woe is me". All I knew is if I could work, I would work harder than anyone else. If it wasn't for my mom, who would have me go walk the park with her, I don't know where I would be. Probably not here. So I started a blog. My goal was to do it every day. I wanted to share positivity. I wanted to make myself happy and help others find their happiness. That day after I posted my last post my phone rang. I was just sitting on the couch. It was a news director for a station in Missouri. He asked me if I had a job. (I almost laughed when he asked). He told me about a position that was opening up, and asked me if I could fly out there for an interview. So I went. I got the job. I spent three awesome years there becoming locally famous and shining. I just landed another gig in a larger city making double the pay. I have been thinking about starting a blog because I get a lot of emails about stuff I use on TV, and I thought, well I might as well share what I know. When I was looking at sites THIS one had me log in. I was like what???? So I logged in and bam. I saw my innocent little posts about trying to find happiness. I needed to see this today, because in all honesty, I have been complaining a lot lately. So for that girl who had the biggest heart but thought she had hit rock bottom, I'm going to start this up again.

Dancing In The Rain

All day long it was the most insane weather conditions as another storm hit California...but this time the sun broke out just enough for people to embrace the the momentary dry spell. While looking outside my mom and noticed a double rainbow (yes we are still on the theme of rainbow seeds). I had seen this really cool picture of a person jumping mid air right under a rainbow. Of course, I wished to recreate the picture. So here I am with my mother, doing your typical cheer jump (deer jump for those of you who took ballet) and my mom continued to miss me while I was mid air. "Do it again!" She would yell. "Do you want me to jump on 3, or wait a second after 3?" "I don't know." Ugh. I tried everything and it wasn't working. So I just decided to continuously jump, and hopefully she would snap the picture while I was midair. So here I am getting my daily work out doing back to back jumps and it starts to pour. A massive cloud burst with what felt like 3 pound raindrops hitting me, weighing me down as I challenged gravity with my jumps. But there was something different about this day. It was weird, the sun was out, it was down pouring rain, a double rainbow was shining, and thunder was blaring in the background. After what felt like forever we finally got the picture right. I walked back to the protected balcony where my mom was standing and she said; "This is a good omen." "What do you mean?" "Things are going to start to change for the better." "Why?" "Because you just have to believe." Sometimes in life you just have to believe. Most of the time it's inexplicable, but in due time, something positive can change. My mom always notices the positive through nature, like a sunny day with rain a double rainbow and thunder. Taking a picture of this miraculous moment reinstates ones need to believe in faith, the universe, whatever it is people believe in. But in essence you have to believe. You may not why or in what, but just believe.

Rainbow Seeds

It has been raining cats and dogs all across California but today something special happened...my mom and I saw a rainbow. This was a majestic rainbow, long and wide, with the arch stretching for what seemed to be a mile long. My mom started in on a story that happened when my brother and I were pretty young. She was picking us up from school and the same sort of rainbow appeared. Now most logical people understand rainbows as a spectrum of light, appearing when the sun shines on droplets of moisture thus forming the colors we see...and that there are no leprechauns or pots of gold at the end of a rainbow. But to a child, a rainbow is magic. To them there's no real reason why they appear, they just do. Or they would create some fantasy answer like I did. At that age, if you were to ask me how a rainbow formed, I would have told you it grew from rainbow seeds, that someone planted to make other people happy. So there it was, the rainbow someone planted to make other people in my town feel happy. And it shined brightly and joyfully on our youthful hearts. Now I'm sure that day was just like any other day for my mother, and I suppose she had more important things to do than chasing around a myth, but she let it happen. She took us around for hours as we searched excitedly for the riches. Today, I asked her why...and she said in life you have to live in the moment. Back than, nothing was more important than our smiling excited faces...because that's how children are, they live in the moment. There not worried about what's for dinner, they know they are going to eat at some point, the stress behind it is not crucial. But if something wonderful and magical comes along, you have to go see what you can find. I think living in the moment is something we lose when we grow up. What happens that we decide we can't believe in myths, legends or stories? When does reality set in, and why does it always have to be so negative? We never found that pot of gold. But, that doesn't mean we failed. Because the award we received was a happy memory, a family moment, that will be cherished forever. And so what if rainbows are just a factor of meteorological science, and not created by rainbow seeds? I prefer to plant happiness any day.

Acceptance, Part 1

In honor of Martin Luther King Jr. I decided to take a look at how we accept each other. As a History nerd I wrote my thesis in college about the rise of one particular hate group. It has always interested me how groups like that form. And most importantly how much passion, energy and effort it takes to truly hate someone. But we aren't going to talk about hate groups today, I'll save that for another blog. What I'm thinking about is the term of acceptance. So much has changed since the last century...through the elimination of structural and political prejudice...but we still have to look at ourselves. It seems like acceptance is something that grows slowly. And I have had many conversations about these sorts of topics, and let me tell you everyone has their prejudices. The division between my views to my parents, to my grandparents on race are vastly different. My grandparents lived in a time of segregation. The term ghetto defined ethnic clusters within in a city, not inner city slums. My grandparents were considered "fresh off the boat". On my father's side, my grandmother went through Ellis Island as a French Citizen, my grandfather's parents had just moved to San Francisco from Italy. My grandfather grew up in a time period where he was not considered white because of his Italian roots. My grandfather's sister actually changed their names to be more "American", so they wouldn't be "looked down upon." Looking at them, they looked stereotypically white. Yet a part of them retained that anger of not being "the norm". In response, they did everything they could to become more white, that "pull yourself up from the bootstraps" American mentality was their general rhetoric. It was always hard for them to understand how other ethnic groups had difficulty being accepted, because it was more of "if I could be accepted as a white, why can't you?" The problem was, one, they technically looked white, if you removed them from the Italian Ghetto, no one could argue the blonde, blue eyed kids weren't white, therefore they had an upper hand at acceptance. Secondly, once Italians and even Jewish Americans were accepted as white in our country, they almost quickly forgot what it was like to be not white. And another factor that could be explored is, that dialogue of racial, political and social injustice was just beginning to be talked about, that understanding of others (others could be Blacks, Latinos, Asians, Germans, the Irish, etc.) wasn't there because it wasn't either widely known, or their generation...survivors of the Great Depression just sort of thought every man for themselves, if you don't make it you don't make it. For my parents their youth ran parallel to the Civil Right Movement. They saw it unfold during their most prime and formative learning years. Their social awareness of themselves and the unfair plight of others grew, and that acknowledgement of discrimination and injustice was blazed so much so into their minds, their generation took a stab at stopping it. The Civil Rights Movement was a catalyst to so much more. Half of them went full throttle into various other movements, the new women's movement, the free speech movement, civil rights movement for Native Americans and Mexican Americans, the free love hippy movement, to equal rights in the gay community and anti-discrimination laws like EEO. On the other side, a new rhetoric grew, which historians deemed the "conservative backlash". This was in reaction to the movements that were beginning to turn violent in 1968, the Vietnam war, and almost a disgust to the youth who they felt were leading a wreckless life through free love and drug use. This new dialogue was about bringing Americans back to the basics with a family first mentality. It took storm and politically ruled during most of the 70s and the 80s. Yet, what the two juxtapositions led to was the social term of "tolerance" to help explain how Americans should view racial inequity. And that's what my teachers, products of my parents generation taught my generation about how why we are all different. And for awhile I bought into it. Tolerance of other peoples cultures sounds like a very reasonable thing to preach. Then one day during my studies at Berkeley I started to think about the word tolerance, and I started to despise it. Tolerance, to me, is you're forced to like something. Like, I am going to tolerate my boyfriends obnoxious friend, but I'll never hang out with him on my own, only when I'm forced to, when I'm in situations like group settings, such as school or work. I believe tolerance is the complete opposite of how we should view our society. For me it is more a term of acceptance. Because acceptance is saying, we might look different, eat different believe in different religions, but you're still a likeable person, you're still an interesting person, and you still deserve the same amount as civil liberties as I do, therefore we accept each other.As a teenager my momentous soul searching, self realizing moment was created by the tragedy of 9/11. That was a time when everyone in my high school put aside petty caste differences (the cool kids vs. the jocks vs. the nerds vs. the fill in blank) and we all accepted each other. We all were nice to each other. We came together to do fundraisers and made cards and other various stuff because that day we were all Americans. And that's what I want to leave the beautiful people with today. Is acceptance. Not just on a racial issue, but on a worldly issue. Accept your boyfriends annoying friend, that weird guy at work, a friend who may have chosen a new and very different path in life. Because in the end it makes life a whole lot easier not carrying around built up resentment.

"Always Smile, It Gets You Places"

Since I was a child, whenever I left the house my mother would yell out the door something like; "Don't forget to eat your lunch", when I was on my way to school, "You girls stick together", when I was going out with my friends, or the better, "My whole life is in that car" when I was going on a date. All of this would lead to a very annoyed "MA!" from me. But something else she always made me do...that I never quite realized until recently...was she told me too always smile. When I was little little, like 5 or 6, she would always tell me to "make sure I smiled" at whatever it was I was doing. From dance recitals, trips to see family, volunteer visits at the convalescent hospital to even basketball games (who smiles at the enemy come on?) but, in the end I was smiling at everyone I saw. Even if I didn't feel like it, or I was having a bad day, I still smiled. And you know what? There was three things that came out of that. One, when I was smiling, my mood instantly changed. I perked up, I laughed more, I seemed, well...happy. Even when a few minutes before, I wasn't. Two, I noticed if I was smiling, people around me started smiling more. The air seemed lighter. And, they themselves started to be in a better mood. Three, I noticed I felt more confident in myself. Look at yourself in the mirror and smile. And not a fake smile, (we all have a fake smile) a real, genuine smile. You instantly feel better. You look better. You become better. Have you ever noticed a very confident person? They can walk into the room and command attention. One day in the dorms, a friend of mine was having a really tough day. I think once a month we all just have a day where EVERYTHING goes wrong. And it led into her believing she was not pretty, she needed to lose weight...the works. And I remember I told her, "Always smile, it gets you places". After I said that, I thought to myself, oh geez, I'm sounding like my mother...but she looked at herself with new light. That night we saw a guy she had a crush on, I said smile at him, and guess what? He came over to talk. This saying has now become something we all say to each other before a big interview, date, or if were having a awful day. It's just interesting how a smile can go a long way. How it can open doors that were once closed to our previous negative attitudes. So here is my challenge: Be that person who walks into a restaurant, bar, coffee shop...etc, that is smiling. Command that attention wherever you go. Make that first impression great, be that confident person that shines through your smile. Notice those around you who start to smile because you are. And remember, you can light up a room with your beautiful smile.