If I Show You About Myself, Will You Stay?

I wanted to question how connected we are to each other. But let me tell you, in that question statement alone, the word to be understood is "connection." What does it mean to have connection? What is connection? At what point does it happen? Why do we sometimes know when it happens and sometimes we don't recognize it taking place?

If I had known that questioning connectedness would lead to so many more questions, perhaps I would have done the smart, safe thing and run completely away from the idea! I have found more questions than I have time for and more questions then I have personal experience to relate to. This is the challenge that comes with designing concepts. But by this point I have asked a hard question and I'm committed to not understanding it fully but still effectively communicating what I do know about it.

So, back to "what does it mean to have connection?" Let me walk you through my brainstorm analysis:

Connection - to connect - to belong.
That's about as far as I got before I panicked and consulted wisdom of the lady who started me on this questioning journey - Brené Brown (and specifically this article) - who I respect and admire for her dedication to unravelling hard and sometimes subjective life concepts.

She says:

“I define connection as the energy that exists between people when they feel seen, heard, and valued; when they can give and receive without judgment; and when they derive sustenance and strength from the relationship.” - Brené Brown

"They feel seen, heard, and valued.... can give and receive without judgement." 
Ok, so then I figured that connection is asking the question: can I be known and can I be safe in who I am? But then I had to ask: what does it look like to be known? (At this point the questions are questioning themselves, incase you haven't noticed).

What does it mean to be known?
We use social media to know about people. "Connection" is the manifesto of social media but what if that's not what is really happening? What if social media connection is being confused with options for isolation? To have the ability to show our lives to people as a highlight reel of the good times (or the attention-seeking times..), or to show what looks put together. We can show people what we want them to see but then are we truly known? There are many stats and studies that suggest a greater disconnect, a greater loneliness as a result of this process. In this case, if we accept the social media type of connection as entirely connection then are we settling for counterfeit connection in the end? (At this point the questions are real deep and wildly unresolved).

Next thought:
˙ǝʌᴉʇɔǝdsɹǝd ʍǝu ɐ pǝǝu I

I have recently become obsessed with the idea of looking at the presence of something through the lens of that same thing's absence. So if I seem to be getting no where and everywhere with reflecting on connection, what happens if I consider occurrences of disconnection? 
And the same many questions follow.

In this journey the conclusion I have come to is that letting other people see you is an act of your own will. You choose to let people in and to share with them. If you want people to know you, you have to tell them about yourself. All of this is vulnerability and all of vulnerability is scary and no WONDER we settle for any kind of other counterfeit connection.

And so I have decided my final statement in all of this. It requires vulnerability. It is an exchange between people that will allow connection. It is a question (go figure), but just like how choosing to show yourself to another person requires action, so then does the response of the other. Their response is important - it's the thing we're scared of. And so,

Connection asks: if I show you about myself, will you stay?

(What does it mean to "stay?" Just kidding! I'm stopping the questions right this very minute but this one intrigues me quite a lot and I'd be lying to say I won't revisit it again sometime.)

Elegant design over exact implication

Elegant design over exact implication

Design as a communication-oriented discipline

Despite all the negative connotations, persuasion is not necessarily an underhanded device, but rather a socially acceptable form of reasoning.

Because all human communication is, in one way or another, infiltrated rhetorically, design for visual or verbal communication cannot be exempt from that fact.

According to Quintilian, rhetorical figures generate rules that can be looked upon as means of "lending credibility to our arguments" and "exciting the emotions."

He also considered the use of these figures as "the art of saying something in a new form" to give a message greater vitality and impact.

"Well-chosen words deserve well-chosen letters"

Typography as a concept is like clothing. The sizes, colours, and shapes may change with the trends but our need for clothing will not. Likewise, sometimes we notice outfits and pairings of clothing items and sometimes we don't. Noticing outfits can be the result a good choice, or a bad choice - one that suggests it might be laundry day and we just threw on whatever was still clean.

In my experience, strong typography always stirs the same reaction in me. A breath.
I get the sense that Bringhurst would understand my reaction from reading his description of the power of typography. A piece with strong typography lets me breathe, lets me rest. I know the difference between looking at a document and panicking and looking at a document and taking a breath.
This may sound dramatic but if I am presented with one of these take-a-breath documents, I feel loved. I feel like the designer created space for me and that they considered me, their reader, when they wrote/designed.

___

"Well-chosen words deserve well-chosen letters" (again, Bringhurst)

I was once asked to write an article for a newsletter that is distributed all over Alberta. It took me a full day to write and I cried over it. I'm not a crier but I'll tell you why I was overwhelmed to the point of tears: The sheer weight of words.
I somehow understood that my words held value and that my audience was as broad as people that can read. I was asked to share my experience. Sharing meaning vulnerability. These are scary things! I remember how then, and many times since, I chose my words so very carefully, almost painfully. My story doesn't end in some disaster of my article being printed in some shockingly bad typeface (cough*chalkduster*cough) but these words of Bringhurst caught my attention because I have also known well-chosen words and I can appreciate the importance of the letters they are given.

Placing a typeface on text gives it an identity. Not in a mask-wearing, new outfit kind of way but in a representation of the text's meaning kind of way.

___


Bringhurst suggests that typography should perform these services for the reader:

//   invite the reader into the text;
//   reveal the tenor and meaning of the text;
//   clarify the structure and the order of the text;
//   link the text with other existing elements;
//   induce a state of energetic repose, which is the ideal condition for reading.

I'm including these in hopeful anticipation of some stray reader understanding the importance of at least knowing about typography as a thing to be considered. Admittedly, it's importance, existence, and necessity was all lost on me prior to learning the process of what it takes to design a new typeface.
I'm also including these in hopeful anticipation that I will return often to these typographic truths. I want to let people breathe and make them feel considered in my work.

Data is Both Number and Value

What kind of data would make me want to tell stories?

In answering this question, I need to first understand why we tell stories. Does it always need to have a meaning or a moral? If it is argued that it doesn’t need this kind of purpose, is there any good reason for telling a story? Is this, perhaps, the difference between unnecessary noise and valuable information?

I think that stories are influential in any sense because they impact our emotions. They cause our reaction. It touches our values – the core of our personhood.

If this is the case, I want to deal with data that impressed upon values. Then, some values are subjective; others still, are objective. I have my personal set of beliefs and values and you surely do to. These are three questions I’m challenging myself to understand when deciding to tell stories:

1. What things make me come alive?
2. What cause(s) can I imagine myself, if not now but in the future, excellent at living in defense of?
3. What is the problem in the world that I am meant to solve?

It’s not easy to answer these questions and it takes, as I’m learning, a life time of searching, experiencing, self-awareness, anticipating, reacting, forgetting, and re-learning.

__

Now, in the direction of becoming more concrete:

I read a quote recently that described people as “drowning in information while starving for wisdom.” This is where I will begin my discussion of what kind of data would make me want to tell stories.

Standing Room Only

Standing room only. This was the reality at the church tonight for Holy Thursday.

When leading music, many, many things are on my mind...nerves, excitement, I'm drowning in sheet music, does everyone have the same version of the songs, are the mics working, why aren't the mics working, did we pray, drink water, oh I forgot to tell the sound people something, for the hundredth time - the order of the song is this.. , adjust mic stand, adjust mic stand again, and again, what intention am I bring to this Mass, man the pews are filling up, I forget everything, bathroom? no time, pray, breathe. To name a few. Really, I'm not trying to be dramatic, it's actually like this. 

But then Mass began and let me tell you, the possibility of hearing ourselves over the congregation was beautifully non-existent. Wait..a congregation that sings out loud?! Yes, they exist! 

For some reason I thought beforehand that Jesus' example of washing His disciples' feet would be what my heart pondered on, and then that I would spend the Mass praying for eyes to see opportunities in my life that contained the lowest, most insignificant occasions for service (in true wanting-to-be-like-Jesus fashion).  Though this is a beautiful and admirable thing to want, God, out-doing me in the "things I think I need" department, had another thing coming. 
Today instead, I was completely overwhelmed by the people that occupied every pew and lean-able wall space. They hadn't come to see me, (though they did see me and I was painfully aware of it) but no, they had come to see the Lord. They had come to sit around the table of the Last Supper. To hear His word, to have their feet washed, to adore, to worship, to receive, to sing.   

With each sit, stand, and kneel, we as a community were brought closer to the words that would make bread and wine the very presence of our atoning Saviour. 

The anticipation in my heart was, well, a lot and this is where that "completely overwhelmed" part I mentioned before comes in. What I mean is: inspired, so in awe, and convicted by the faith of the faithful, to the point of, well, not holding it together. How could I hold it together though when my harmonies were being exchanged with the melody of the congregation, my community and family, inviting me to "come as you are" broken and worn out and to "fall in His arms."  

In all my time of choosing songs for Mass, I can't stop being amazed at how the Holy Spirit works in the song list even months in advance. Tonight, for example: to sing the words that invite us to come as we are whether full-hearted, empty-hearted, hurt, wounded, sinful, joyful, tired, nervous, in my case - a dramatic mess of emotion...but then, then to offer the song Here's My Heart. Together we proclaimed often forgotten truths that, "I am healed;" "I am loved;" "I am Yours;" "You are good," and so here's my heart, Lord. 

Again, no, I did not could not hold it together. I'll admit I sang at the top of my lungs (here's hoping sound people turned me down!)  


So, with a full (and exhausted from being so full) heart, bring on Holy Week!

One final thing to ponder forever:

May We Never Lose Our Wonder

I've been learning a lot about my heart in the last few weeks.

Maybe it's a 2015 thing, or maybe it's a new found clarity thing, but in any case, I have come to know a change that has revealed in me a different kind of life.
I have begun to live in a way that I can only explain as "free."
Free to have fun, free to express joy, free to take risks, free to let my gifts and talents be known, free to feel emotions, free to acknowledge fears, free to go on dates, free, indeed, to suffer even.

I must mention that I'm trying desperately not to treat this as a rental and something which will be given back; but rather, as something to be kept as my own and instilled as constant.

And I've just had this knowingness draped across my heart most especially while at Rise Up.
While again!..falling in love with the Lord.

To have truth and encouragement well up obviously in my eyes as sweet tears that roll down my cheeks as if to say, "finally, your heart knows."

And in those moments I remember that I am worthy.

I'm pondering an idea I have never even thought before...
           'Actually, it's ok to succeed.'
It has never occurred to me, that without being the bad kind of "righteous" ..it's ok to win, and it's ok to do well. (Especially in school.)
It sounds dumb to say this in a place that's not inside of my head. I should know this by now though. Most of the fears inside my mind are irrational when spoken out loud.


Back to freedom:
Like every significant thing in life (happiness, love, joy...), living freely is a choice.
It's a constant battle of the mind and heart to let go of control and give it to God, it's a battle of giving up worry to the capable hands of the One who will never disappoint, and it's a battle of choosing to accept mercy into the darkest places of my heart.

It's hard to receive. For me, it means I have to accept that I am weak. I am. But I am also worthy.

But, mentored by grace, I have come to this beautiful conclusion that I can live freely because I serve a God that will take care of me in all things.
And so, as the chains are slowly broken, I am ok, and I am free to live whether it be in success, in joy, or in suffering.

Bewildered Thoughts & Self Relfection

Oh hey there always dreaming, confused, stupid, beautiful, gullible, overdramatic heart...

The degree to which I feel is unreal. Just everything, ten times over. Two nights ago I had a stupid dream about a stupid boy. However stupid..my heart returns to a place I don't want to fight.

Being nearly the only one in a coffee shop with pouring rain outside is my idea of absolute bliss. I don't know what it is, but it soothes my soul.

There are not nearly enough hours in a day to accomplish all that I'd like or should.
I already know that I have a hard time saying no to people and opportunities...if I'm asked to help with something, I've noticed that I very validated and needed in it. To a fault though, because I take on too much.
The thing is - I don't even like people that take on so many things that they can only complete them adequately, but not necessarily well. I don't even hang out with those people . . . yet, I am one. And if there's anything I know about myself, it's that when things get too much and I'm overwhelmed, my only coping method is to ignore it all and wish desperately for it to go away.  Not because I don't love it, but because the stress of being relied on is far more than I can handle.

I'd say that I'm versatile and that my talents are transferable between many of life's situations. Too many at the same time.

Creativity is the concept that makes me love and cherish the abstract things of life, but at the same time, is the cause of turing my whole world inside out and my plans into complete oblivion, which I mostly despise.

I wonder if I'll ever move away from St. Peter's..I feel like my settlement is here. The kind of settling a married couple starting a family would do. Except, you know, I'm not married. Marry the church? problem solved. I don't know..



Sigh. Still trying to find my place amongst this mess that, despite my best efforts, I cannot contain in a nice box with a big bow.
I'd very much like to simplify. Live scandalously by moving slowly through the rush and quietly through the noise.


St. Thérèse, Little Flower, simple in all things and proficient in love and purpose, pray for me.

I'm at Family Life...I just brushed my teeth with beer instead of water cause I didn't have any. What?

Create In Me A Clean Heart

I've noticed. 

I've noticed how long this has gone on for and how my heart lingers on you, still with absolutely no certainty. 

Who are you really? Because I think I'm in love with the idea of who I think you are..or who you could become. 

I'm a contradiction of my standards and come dangerously close to throwing them all away for you. 

I know that wouldn't cause satisfaction, ultimately. 

But really, what do I know. 

What do I know of navigating beyond my safe shores into the depths of feelings, and emotions, and God's will, and truth, and loneliness, and stubbornness, and spontaneity? 

I know nothing except that this is something...

....unless I go on pretending it's nothing. 

I Dreamed a Dream of Times Gone By

Tonight I was ready to cry in public. 

Singing at St. Peter's is something I've cried over before...when I was ten years old. We had just moved into the parish and I was ballistic over the fact that there was a children's choir. Well, my heart was set - the first thing I was going to do was join that choir. 

I cried when I showed up at the beginning of practice with my mom and was told I couldn't join. 

It was mid-way through December and too close to Christmas for me to learn all of the songs they had been practicing. 

Needless to say, first thing after Christmas, I joined the children's choir. I enjoyed every second of it. I was bold and unashamed of standing out. I sang many solos and, given the chance, I would have volunteered it sing them all. 

After years, my time in that choir was over, and the demand birthed the St. Peter's youth choir. Besides some confusion of direction and vision - as is expected with an idea that comes from passion and not a ton of thought - I absolutely loved going to choir. I loved being able to push the boundaries of liturgical music ministry into a more youthful and charismatic adventure. I loved that the youth found a beautiful place of service. I loved being passionate about something. I loved the experience of recording a professional CD.

This choir is what I think kept me coming to mass every week with out fail during my "discovering myself" adolescent years in which mass moves from being an expectation to being a choice. 

Then I went away to australia. 

This is where things change leading to tonight..

The anyone-can-join mentalitied youth choir took a different direction into what it is now. To encourage commitment and a higher standard of music (and, I'm sure, other motives that are not completely clear to me), the choir became an audition-only band. 

They're very good and an incredibly talented group made up of my closest friends in the community.

I guess that's what makes it so hard. I have a problem in my heart with the exclusive nature of the group (#thereisaidit), but everything passionate inside of me aches to be able to sing for the Lord. 

Just like that bright-eyed ten year old girl, my heart is set. 

I don't know what to do.