Since I came out today, I figured it is only fitting to organize what I do believe since detaching my tentacles from the organized religion of Christianity. Here is what I do believe, with no evidence, just feeling what my spirit feels: I feel there is a Creator. Actually I choose to believe this because I cannot wrap my head around any kind of notion that the beauty we find in nature, children, love, and the connections of spirit with others  is just by happenstance or evolving biologically. There is no way this just "is". I can't tolerate that concept. There is something bigger than this universe that has taken time to deliberately paint flowers, design body systems, and provide emotions. That I feel in my spirit for SURE.  I feel the closest spiritually to my creator when I am in nature. When the sounds and music of nature are playing I can almost tear up for the sheer beauty of it all. I feel healing happen naturally in nature.  I believe that when someone is ha...

I must be crazy for doing this. No, actually I must want to be silently (or maybe loudly) slaughtered by judgmental minds and peering eyes, crazed holy folks who will not, not NOT tolerate any type of diversion tactics, alternate theories, or openness to other levels of spiritual living. And I'm okay with that. Because I must be honest. I can honestly say I feel like I'm getting ready to "come out" to the world, and although I don't know what that's like for those who are homosexual, I know what it feels like to "come out" religiously, and I'm about to do just that.  Deep breath, you can do this. Just tell them what's on your mind. Just tell them...tell them... I don't think I'm a Christian anymore, guys. Instead of trying to beautifully articulate gluttonous paragraphs trying to sanely explain what goes on in my noggin, I'll just write a quick annotated list of what has spiritually been happening inside of THIS woman. I w...

To my lovely readers, I want you to know that I'm still here. I have been avoiding writing because my life is a little imperfect right now, and to share it with you would be very risky for me because it would mean being honest. As you know, I am very insistent on honesty. So since being honest would be hard, I decided to wait until I was confident enough to share this honesty with you. My life is such a grand mural, and a new paint or pattern may become splatted on it at the drop of a hat, with no warning and certainly no opportunity to wipe it off or rearrange. Once it's there, it's there. Displaying right on my heart. There's no way around it. I want to be responsible in how I share the new art that's been done, so that my words will paint an accurate and, again, confident portrait of what is now.  I find such an escape through writing, painting, playing my instruments. But I have to remember not everyone understands and unites with my soul. And I'm okay...

This was a requested blog topic:  America's (tainted) view of the Mother's Body.  I have a couple of websites I want you to go check out before you read the rest of this. A complete visual guide of mothers and their body-battles BabyCenter polls 7,000 who "tell it like it is"...the truth about the postpartum body Check out this comment from a body image expert about what women think about themselves postpartum: Joan Chrisler, a body image expert who teaches at Connecticut College, isn't surprised. "Lots of studies have shown that women think men want them to be thinner than men really want them to be," she says. "Researchers will show women sketches of female figures and ask, which do you think men believe is the ideal? Men always pick significantly bigger sizes than women think they want." So if your mate says you look great, believe it. Check out this comment from the BabyCenter article about what OTHER people think about women p...

I am musing today about my evolvement. At 10, I thought I could befriend everyone. I knew nothing about petty nonsense except that certain girls in my fifth-grade class would sometimes tease me. My mom thickened my skin by telling me they were jealous. In fact, anything that happened in which I was teased was always resolved by "they're just jealous." Thanks Mom. No, seriously. At 11, I went to music camp (Blue Lake) and made friends with a girl named Tiffany Yang. She was a better pianist than me, quiet, and kind of weird. We became friends. I wonder if I can find her on Facebook now? At 12, shaving legs was a GIGANTIC deal. I wasn't allowed to. I felt like the Yeti. At 13, I returned to music camp. I fell in love for the second-ish time. The first time I had no clue what was going on. This time, I never got to say good-bye to my new flame. I was depressed over that for a little while. At 14, I went to CMU's music camp and met an awesome girl who was be...

My mom always said, "Always tell the truth. Even if you think you're going to get in trouble. I need to be able to trust what you say, because one day you're going to need me to trust when it looks like you're lying." I never forgot that, and I began my truth-telling as a young lady. Even when I was telling the truth, I still sometimes was perceived as lying. But I held to that code of honor 99.9% of the time for the next years of my life up to this day. There were times I became defensive and eluded an honest view of myself and something wrong I had done, but I came around. The lie I most regret is the one to Mrs. Rabeler, ninth-grade algebra teacher. She was a very smart, sharply-dressed woman who taught at Lansing Christian High School. Man, was she brilliant at math. She wrote neatly on the overhead, and nobody even thought to disrespect her, I don't think. The one rule we all had is that we could NOT chew gum in school. We had a brand new school and e...

This reflection quickie is inspired by something I said to my son regarding food. Take a peek: Me: "What did you have for lunch at school today?" Son: "I didn't try it, I didn't think I would like it." Me: "Son, you're not always going to like everything that's placed before you. What if we didn't have any food at home and that's all you got to eat for a few hours, is what was offered at school? You'd be pretty hungry." **Deep breath to think of how to organize subsequent thoughts into preschool-friendly terms** Me: "...sometimes you can't think about the future, that you'll just eat when you get home. Think about the present, what's happening right now. You won't always like what's in the present, but sometimes you have to accept it whether you like it or not." Did you catch it? I immediately ingested my own words, and they're still digesting. I realized that the pain and hurt I mu...