New Year's Revelations

"It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don't keep your feet, there's no knowing where you might be swept off to." -- Bilbo Baggins to his nephew Frodo Baggins, from J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings.

Normally, the first month of a new year is spent creating New Year's Resolutions and working toward being healthier, more productive, spending more time with our families, being more creative, being more positive, etc etc. The goal we seem to aim for is to ultimately: be a better person.

But this year, I'm not buying into the mentality.

Instead, I'm choosing to put my focus back where it should be. On God.

I'm a missionary, so this shouldn't be hard, right? But, I'm also a filmmaker and writer and an aspiring actress. Finding room for God can sometimes be difficult. Especially, when I come home at the end of a long day and just want to curl up on the couch and watch a movie or read a good book. Or sleep!

Unrealistic Expectations

One of the reasons I'm passing on making a list of resolutions is because I often create an unrealistic goal for myself: learn ten new languages, take lessons in modern dance, ballet, jazz and hiphop, go to acting classes and take voice lessons, read 100 books in a year, write six novels, make twelve movies. Produce seven plays.

These are all good things, but in my hype and determination I shoot for the moon and don't even end up in the stars.

I'm not saying you shouldn't go for your dreams. Write the resolutions if it inspires you, but remember what's most important.

God.

All my life, I've been told the Big Story God had for me would be impossible without him. It made me feel important to God that he wanted to keep me so close and give me such a huge story.
I was going to star in an epic!

Then life happened. The journey started. The road got bumpy and I wished I'd listened a bit more to Bilbo Baggins who warned Frodo to keep his feet, because there really is no knowing where you might be swept off to.

What I realized is, when my focus was on the New Year's Resolutions I thought making the list was half-way to living that life and not only the start. I wanted it now as so many of us in the microwave generation do. So when it was harder and took longer, or even when I failed I let guilt take over.

My focus was on the impossible goal.

Not where it should be.

On God.

That's why this year, I'm taking a different approach. I'm not making the list of resolutions because I know if I fix my focus on God and getting to know him more I'll actually reach better goals and become a, truly, healthier person.

It'll happen by osmosis. Not because I don't still try to go for my goals, but because I will see all my goals through a filter of love and truth. I can still shoot for the moon and instead of only landing among the stars, I'll pass this galaxy and go to the next.

Do you understand what I mean? I'm not saying I'll get my goal or even reach it. I'm saying I'll discover the better thing. The richer life.

Unexpected Realities

When God told me I was to pursue acting and filmmaking, I thought that meant going to Hollywood. I thought he'd help me get my own star on the Walk of Fame.

I could see myself kneeling on the pavement and pressing my hands into the soft cement, with a crowd of fans and paparazzi taking my picture. And like most kids, I'd stand in front of my mirror, hold a Barbi or my hairbrush and thank the Academy again for my fourth consecutive Oscar for Best Actress.

And then God told me to move to Australia. I thought maybe it was just a detour on the way to Tinseltown. A blip, so to speak.

But, that "detour" has lasted almost ten years.

It wasn't until a few years ago I realized this wasn't the blip. This was the Big Story God had for me and I needed to stop seeing it as temporary.

It was then I looked back on the journey so far and saw how much richer my life was. No, I didn't have my own star on the Walk of Fame, but I had a family of filmmakers who I could trust and do life with. I was living as a filmmaker and actress and writer.

Not aspiring anymore, but doing it. Living it.

And when I looked closer, I realized time and time again, all the films I'd worked on, all the stories I'd gotten to write had one thing in common. They came about when I stopped striving to be a better person and when I focused in on loving God and getting to know this amazing and mysterious being who liked to create as much, and even more, than I did.

He brought them into my life.

When we put our focus in the right place -- on God -- there's more freedom for him to create the BIG Story in our lives, the epic adventures.

It actually makes me see Bilbo's comment in another light, like he was excited to tell Frodo to watch where his feet took him. Because with God, there really is no knowing where you might be swept off to. It's all part of the Big Story God wants to tell with our lives and it can only happen if our focus is fixed on him.

It was a new revelation and I want to dive in head first.

Are you up for the adventure?

Originally published on Christian Today.

Contentment might require more than we think

"Then something Tookish woke up inside him, & he wished to go & see the great mountains, & hear the pine-trees & the waterfalls, & explore the caves, & wear a sword instead of a walking-stick." The Hobbit, JRR Tolkien

I find myself googling exotic new places and wondering how long I'd have to save up in order to buy a ticket and go.

I thought something Tookish had woken up inside me, but it doesn't feel right. Doesn't feel quite Tookish.

It's because it's not the desire to adventure, but the desire to escape.

It's the loss of contentment.

Discontentment

I'd blame it on growing up as a missionary kid. We lived all over the place and even when we did
settle in Hawaii for ten years, we still moved around a lot. Changing apartments and houses every couple of years. But it's not the same, I was never running from something.

And now. I find myself living in a place I've lived for more than ten years, in the same job and I don't see it changing anytime soon.

There's a big part of me that misses the adventure of new places and new friends and an even bigger part of me that's terrified of a future settled in one place.

I can't help but shake my head at myself. I'm a filmmaker. Life is never the same. I never know where we're going to be shooting next, or what story we'll tell.

So why the discontented feels?

Vulnerability

I got my first clue a couple years ago, I sat down for an interview for another episode in our Making The Out of the Woods Project. Friend and fellow writer, Brenden Bell, asked me, "What's the hardest part about planting yourself somewhere?"

I had to laugh when he asked because it's something I feel like I'm still learning and as I stumbled through an answer it finally came to me.

The hardest part is how vulnerable I have to be.

Being vulnerable with the people in our lives is very, well, vulnerable. It's scary. It means they'll see me at my best but they'll also see me at my worst.

And what if they don't like me after seeing my worst?

But after more than ten years of friendship with some of these people I've realised something else very important.

They still love me.

Still call me friend after all the crazy years.

It's not been an easy road, the things I've struggled with, the losses I've experienced and my general drama queen status have not made it easy for them to be around me all the time, but they've still chosen to make an effort.

I remember one time when I was really struggling with self doubt. The director of our company came up to my desk and asked if I was ready for our meeting. We had no meeting scheduled, but I got up and followed him out of the room.

As soon as we moved out of the office I looked at him questioningly, he smiled and said, "I knew you just needed to get out of the office and talk."

It was a precious moment. He took the time out of our incredibly busy schedule to connect with my vulnerability.

This is something we need more in our society.

Both being vulnerable and sticking with people in their vulnerabilities.

Instead of flinging hateful words at each other and abandoning people because they annoy us or we just don't want that in our lives, I think we should challenge ourselves to stick it out. To force ourselves to keep walking with someone.

It won't just help the person we choose to keep walking with, but I believe it will help us to be better people too.

It won't be easy and there will be times when we want to just walk away, but if we hold to the course, we may just find that we change the world for the better and our Facebook feeds will be full of smiling faces of friends verses enemies.

It's a simple idea, but what if it could work?

Originally published on Christian Today.

Embracing My Tookish Side

A couple years ago a few friends and I went to the annual Abbey Medieval Festival to spend a day in the past.

Not only did I learn and experience new things from everyday life of the Medieval past, but I learned about the sub-culture of the festival re-enactors too and it woke something "Tookish" inside of me.

“Then something Tookish woke up inside him, & he wished to go & see the great mountains, & hear the pine-trees & the waterfalls, & explore the caves, & wear a sword instead of a walking-stick.” The Hobbit, JRR Tolkien

At one of the many canvas tents was a mud-oven where re-enactors were baking hardy, brown bread. They were passing it out to all of us when another re-enactor came bounding up to get a piece of the delicious bread too and after a cute little exchange he bounded away again with his fresh and tasty treasure.

The girl slicing the bread looked at us with a sparkle in her eye, said "That's my dad." and went back to preparing pieces for us to try & it suddenly hit me - this big event wasn't just a once a year party for us medieval loving people, but for these re-enactors it was a way of life.

A New Way of Life

After this, I spent about an hour talking with two other re-enactors, each dressed to the nines as medieval knights. One was wearing a chain-mail shirt he hand made.

During our chat I mentioned the girl and her father and the two knights' eyes lit up. They began telling me how there were 3rd generation re-enactors at the festival, the kids of re-enactors had raised their kids in this sub-culture and now those kids were part of the festival too.

Imagination ignited, I tried to picture the life these people led. They were living in the past and present all at once, totally embracing the fullest they could get out of both. They all made their own clothes - even their shoes! They all slept in canvas tents during the festival, eating mutton cooked over open fires, singing old songs and drinking honeyed mead. The REAL festival happened when all us "tourists" left & they got a moment living in the past.

There was something about this that stirred my soul. I'm still searching for an actual name for it, I've been searching for years. The closest I've come to naming it is what writers John Eldridge and Brent Curtis call a "Haunting" in their book The Sacred Romance. Or what Erwin Raphael McManus calls the "Barbarian" in his book The Barbarian Way.

These names are great, but for me they still lack something... maybe it's because "IT" is too big for one or two words.

A New Type of Adventure

How can we encapsulate a feeling and way of life in one word?

All I know is this "It", this "stirring" is raw and gritty. It's sun burnt faces with dirt etched into every wrinkle and pore, it's deep laugh lines and fierce eyes, it's knowing who and Who's you are, it's living boldly and passionately even in the midst of the scariest, deadliest storm. It's the great, big and wild adventure God calls each of us to live.

So often we want our lives to be plastic clean, or just safe and cozy like a warm little hobbit hole I know about, but God's adventure is quite the opposite.

I always think of impulsive Peter who was ready to follow Jesus everywhere- even death. Who couldn't believe he would ever deny or abandon his Lord, who took up a sword and cut a man's ear off, because he thought he was defending his friend. He was raw and passionate and many times Jesus had to bring him correction.

No doubt most us would look at a man like that and scowl at his rough-around-the-edges attitude, but not Jesus. Instead, Jesus saw how passionately Peter wanted to be part of the 'Haunting', 'Barbarian' way of life and it was Peter he chose as the foundation of his church.

"And I tell you that you are Peter, & on this rock I will build my church, & the gates of Hades will not overcome it." Matthew chapter 16, verse 18

It's our choice whether we will choose to risk it all for the sake of the better and bigger story or stay safe in our cosy little hobbit holes.

I, for one, will be following in Bilbo, Peter's and those medieval re-enactors steps, you'll probably see me running down that Road shouting "I'm going on an adventure."

Wanna join me?

How To Be A Culture Shaper

The words, ‘Culture Shaper’, stirs something in my soul. It’s the same feeling I get when Frodo, in The Lord of the Rings is declared as a Ring Bearer.

It calls me, like a mighty echo.

I envision standing on the edge of a cliff, the wind whipping through my unruly hair, the crisp outdoors waking all five senses until I’m fully alive and then raising my voice in a great warrior call and shouting, “I am a Culture Shaper.”

Maybe that’s a bit too dramatic for you, but I think we need inspiration to move from being ‘just dreamers’ to ‘active players’ in this game of life.

Culture Dies When You’re Perspective Is To Be Cost Effective

I was walking through the city when this idea came to me. I’d passed a large construction site for yet another skyscraper, when I turned the corner to see a building a hundred years older than myself.
It’s a beautiful old thing, huge doors with ironwork decals, there are intricate carvings at the corners, and around each window. In all, the building is a work of art, not just another cookie cutter block of real-estate.

So what am I rambling on about? What is a Culture Shaper? It’s someone who defies the norm to create and build something beautiful.

How often, in our own lives, do we go for the cost effective block over the old beauty?

We all want to save as much money as we can. We buy cheaply made clothes, sit in our own versions of the Ikea living room, and even celebrate momentous moments on a budget of not only money, but time.

While there’s nothing wrong with these things (life is busy for most of us) I still believe we need to start thinking about the things we personally create and the time we actually invest in those around us.

Creating Culture Takes Changing Our Perspectives On Daily Life

Let me get down to the nitty-gritty. And also, the less glamorous bits of being a Culture Shaper.
That image I had at the beginning, of standing on the edge of a cliff? Yeah, in real life I’d be shaking from the cold wind, my hair would be tying itself in knots and my stomach would be flipping at the extreme drop. Oh, and when I yell in my warrior whoop? My voice comes out strained and high-pitched, very unlike a warrior.

Being a Culture Shaper takes heaps of effort.

It comes down to how we choose to live on a minute by minute basis.

For example, I’m a storyteller. I can whip up a solid short story in no time, but it’ll lack the work and time the great stories take.

Likewise, I can pop down to Macca’s for a quick dinner, or I could stay home and learn to make lasagne from a friend.

Being a Culture Shaper, means taking the long road. Means slowing down a bit, actually taking time to smell the flowers. But most importantly, it means bringing others with us.

It can be relatively easy to change our own habits and daily routines, but you don’t become a Culture Shaper until you bring someone with you to smell the flowers.

For some, this may be a bit outside your comfort zone, but I promise you, it’s worth it. Have a think about where you can change your own perspective. For me, I know it’s time to start saying “Yes” to more of the activities I normally hide from.

I’ve become a bit lazy. If there’s something happening that sounds a bit draining or uncomfortable, I shake my head and say “Pass”. It’s time for me to change. To put in the long and uncomfortable hours. To invest in the people around me.

It’s time to be a Culture Shaper.

You up for the challenge?

Originally published on Christian Today.