Weekend Thoughts

Ok, so I'm trying out this whole blogging thing...who knows how long it will last, but for the time being I have way too much time on my hands so we'll just see what comes out of it...



So I spent the weekend in the LA area with my dearest friend Shannon in Thousand Oaks, CA. We always have an amazing time even if we don't do anything because that is just how our friendship is and the friendship I have with all of my girls from school. I don't ever realize how much I miss them until I see them or talk to them, even if its just for coffee really quick with Lauren, a phone call from Kelsea, an IM conversation with Megan, lunch with Lexi, or hanging out with Angela, or a random trip to TO with Shannon...I still can't believe that we all don't live together any more...having to plan hang out time is weird...I used to be able to just come home and my favorite people were there. I really hope that we all get to do life together again some day...what am I saying, they are all going to move to Oroville with me! haha yea right, I wish :)



Ok, so anyway, I was in LA and I we decided to meet up with a friend in Hollywood for dinner etc. I had never been to Hollywood which is probably odd since I have lived in CA all of my life and that is what everyone thinks of when they think of CA, but never the less I have just never found myself there. So we walked down Hollywood and Sunset Blvd. and looked at the stars on the sidewalk and the Kodak Theater and the hand prints etc. Unfortunately my nice visit to Hollywood with friends was interrupted by my thoughts and a book I am reading called the Irresistible Revolution. It's by Shane Claiborne and it's jacking me up, in a good way. I'm sure you will see many more blogs to come on that book, but for now all I can really form about it are little thoughts that are sticking with me and many emotions and lots of confusion. It's amazing. So one of the things I was thinking about while walking down Hollywood Blvd. was why the movie stars are seemingly not happy. That is a huge generalization obviously...I'm sure a lot of the movie stars would say that they are happy and live very full lives, but I feel like a lot of them are not. I started thinking about Shane and all of his ideas and ways of living and how he was called to sell everything and live with the poor and be a radical and an extremist and how I'm not called to be an extremist but I am called to live like a real Christian...something that even I can't define these days. To stay afloat in reading this book and living life I have been attempting to discover what I am called to do, and what being a Christian really means. What I think that means for me is putting others before myself in EVERYTHING and stepping out of my comfort so that others may be comfortable and giving up my dinner so that others may have dinner and my bed so that others may have a bed...both literally and figuratively. So back to Hollywood...what if the stars aren't happy because they haven't found their place in the world. I'm sure that acting is a gift from God, but what if the stars are missing out on living out their passions and giving their lives away...Shane says something in his book that really hits me hard. He says that if you have an extra bed, it belongs to someone else, and the same goes for clothes and food and shoes. I know that stars give to charity but a lot of them, like a lot of us, have so many extra things that they don't need and others could use. Also, the fact that I just referred to the stars as them and us is probably a problem. I don't view them as people and I probably should. And they aren't the only ones with extra money and food and clothes, I am too. So what do we do?

I was talking to a friend the other night and we talked about how we grew up learning Consumeristic Christianity and are still living it. Things need to change, I'm just not sure how that looks yet or really where to start or what to do. But I have to do something. We all do probably...