Change and Courage

I'm having one of those "I think something is going on inside of me" moments.

There are moments, few in my life, where I can consciously say that "yes, I changed. I really changed" and point to a moment in time. More often - even in this case to some extent - there is a feeling of looking back and seeing the trajectory of it: suddenly realizing that "Oh, this is where that idea came from" or "I can see where I started to do X". But the moments where things seem to crystallize almost immediately are rare.

The buildup, I think, is two events: 1) The conference the Ravishing Mrs. TB and I attended last June (link here and here), because it actually made me sit down and think about goals, goals I really wanted to accomplish, and give a time frame; 2) My job change (acceptance here) because (and much as I miss you, Songbird), it forced me outside of my comfort zone (which, I might add, it does every day). I got into the rut of being in a comfortable environment and not challenging myself to grow. Here, I have no choice.

But the change sees to have popped into place this last weekend: partially because of the trip to Tucson, partially because I am using this vocal program which has challenged me to use the voice of the person I am, partially through giving a name and time frame to my writing (and re-establishing that as the thing I want to do), and partially because I am being brought face to face to face with a much younger man whom I used to know: me.

If you had to ask me what is emerging from it, I would have to say courage. Which is an odd thing to emerge from the amalgamate of what I've listed.

Benjamin Franklin had a fine saying "What you seem to be, be really." We trot that around quite a bit - "Be true to thyself, and thou canst not be false to any man" - but we also are equipped (loaded?) with the expectations of others and how they view us, and therefore what we will do to be viewed correctly (ah, the dreaded peer pressure). It then seems like we spend the rest of our life learning to bring out those things that God gave us that we buried away.

I've seen this happen with others. Go read Buttercup (Vintage Chic Blog - it's on the right). I cheat in the sense that I've known her far longer than she has written, but even in her work you can see the parts of her that were buried for various reasons (her ability to write, for example) being fanned into flame - the thing that was always there, and that God has been waiting for her to be courageous about and do.

(And no, before you think it, there are plenty of things that are not good gifts or personality traits that are buried and should not be brought out, but put to death. That's sin. Not everything that is hidden should see the light. Another entry for another day.)

Because that is part of what the world needs to see - they can see plenty of self-actualized people, people following their goals and dreams - but do they see us as Christians having the courage to live out what God has given us and called us to in a God honoring way, who are not self centered in what we do but neither are pouring ourselves into the mold of what the world thinks Christianity could do?

My model again is Buttercup, an intelligent woman who is cheerful, bright, outgoing, tand talented, but is not these things because she self actualized or is choosing a better You, but because she has Christ -and would be happy to tell you about it. How countercultural is that?

I want to grow up and be like her.