Play Your Tambourine

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When I was little, I played the tambourine for Jesus.

This probably wasn’t as strange as it sounds. I’d spent the night at my grandmother’s house and I had a dream that Jesus was hanging out there, chilling in the back room with the musical members of our congregation while they played and sang for him. I wanted to play my tambourine and sing the way I did in church, but I felt too shy and the tambourine seemed like a stupid instrument compared to the piano or guitar. After a couple of songs had been played, Jesus gestured for me to come over to him. In my little girl dream, he looked the same way he did in pictures—sweet eyes, white robes, brown hair—and he asked why I wasn’t singing with them. When I told him that I couldn’t really play anything, he handed me my tambourine. I can’t remember exactly what he said now, but it was something along these lines:

“Don’t worry about what they’re doing. You do what you can do. Play your tambourine. I like to hear you play.”

When I told my grandmother about the dream later, she said that it meant I should do something with music. That explanation worked until I got a little older and could see the more obvious meaning—that I shouldn’t worry about what others could offer God, but give instead what I was able to give. Of course, even this was in the context of Christianity. Now that I’m no longer associated with the religion, it, too, seems confining.

Still, I’ve been hesitant to toss the dream aside. It’s one of the few from my childhood that I remember, and I’ve always been a strong believer in the idea that these things happen for a reason. It wasn’t until a couple of years ago, though, that I realized what this dream means to me now.

I may not subscribe to any particular doctrine, but I do know that faith has made amazing things happen. God and spirituality are not my enemies; discrimination, hate, and fear-mongering take that unfortunate role. I am not a Christian. It’s been years since I’ve tried to tell anyone about how it feels to be born again. I’m unable to so much as attend a Unitarian Universalist church regularly because there aren’t any close to where I’m living. I still can’t play the piano or guitar well. There are probably a lot of people in this world who would write me straight on into Hell.

But you know what?

I can play my tambourine.

There are Christians out there who are doing marvelous things, just as there are Hindus, Buddhists, Jews, Wiccans, atheists, Muslims, and people in every other category you can think of who are doing marvelous things. They all have their part to play. Each of those parts is important.

There will be lost souls who are looking for the love of Jesus Christ, and there will be troubled minds longing for the peace of Buddhism. There will be those who need to let go and flow with the Tao. I probably won’t be able to give any of them what they’re longing for spiritually, but there are people I can help. Besides, the fact that someone is of another religion doesn’t mean I can’t fill his hungry belly or help her recover after some monster has abused her. It doesn’t mean that we can’t learn things from each other or that there’s anything intrinsically wrong with our relationship.

Being an atheist doesn’t mean that you’re unable to look at the world with wonder.

Being a Christian doesn’t mean that you’re irrational.

Being a Unitarian Universalist doesn’t mean that I can’t fulfill the obligations presented to me in a dream I had of Jesus Christ.

Jesus told me to play my tambourine and not to worry about measuring up to other people’s standards, so I won’t. I am performing in the only way I know how, and even if no one else thinks it’s worthy, I know that it is just as important as anyone else’s effort. I can be nothing other than the best version of what I am. I’ve given up trying.

Play your heart out.

Valentine’s Day

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At some point I stopped referring to Valentine’s Day as Single’s Awareness Day. It didn’t happen because I was in the joyful throes of a relationship. It happened because, eventually, I stopped caring that I wasn’t.

During the holidays, opinions are bounced around a lot. Is Christmas about Christ, family, or presents? Is Easter about Jesus or a bunny rabbit? Is Halloween about candy, about witchcraft, about Satan, about spirits, or about something different altogether? There is no right answer. What’s historically correct doesn’t mean much. The world is constantly changing. What a holiday means to someone has to do with how that particular person decides to celebrate it, not what anyone else dictates.

So is Valentine’s Day about sex and roses? Sure. Just not to me.

For me, Valentine’s Day is about having fun and feeling love. I’m not only talking about romantic love, either. It can be love for your partner, your friends, your family, or yourself. This year, I wore pink and yellow eyeshadow, stockpiled candy for friends, wrote a card for my roommate, got an “I love you!” text from my mom, was treated to Logan’s with my family by my grandpa, treated my stepdad to dinner at Panera, ate cookies with heart-shaped sprinkles, and felt pretty much delightful. Before the clock hits midnight, there will be no kisses, no surprise dates, no bouquets. Still, my heart is full.

Life is the big romance. -Francesca Lia Block

I have an awesome family, and for all our disagreements, I know they love me.

I’m blessed with friends who are witty and kind and who know how to cook a lot better than I do.

I get to go to work three days a week to watch cartoons, draw pictures of princesses and baby seals, and see adorable little faces beaming up at me.

I know that, if I try, I can find a place in the world where I will feel happy, appreciated, and useful, and that if the place isn’t where I thought it would be, it’s probably because there was a better place somewhere else.

If I had a word to explain my vision of God, it would be Love…because even if you can’t always see it or feel it, it’s there. It’s mysterious and sometimes hard to find and even harder to define. It’s scary and it’s infinite and it’s wonderful. It might come easily or with difficulty, but if you call it long enough, it will always come.

I am drenched in, filled with, awed by love.

Happy Valentine’s Day.

(Bonus: You can read Francesca Lia Block’s short story, Safe Love, here. It’s where the above FLB quote is taken from, and there are some things in it that I think are important to keep in mind during times like Valentine’s Day.)

Happy Holidays!

TWLOHA Day

Ask Yourself: What Did Life Teach You Yesterday?

I thought I’d implement something new into my blog posts. No, I don’t mean the Facebook “Like” button and the Twitter button, though those are pretty cool and I urge you to use them with reckless abandon. Wink wink. Nudge nudge.

But all joking aside (for now), I decided it was time to try out a theme apart from TiLT.

Welcome to the first of Breadcrumbs’ Ask Yourself entries!

from here

I’m the sort who is constantly brooding over some nonsense or another, so it only makes sense that I would eventually entice my readers into doing the same. Hopefully, though, the questions that I ask will have meaning. Here’s the game plan:

1. Post an entry every week or so asking a world-shaking, life-altering, brain-challenging…or, okay, maybe just interesting question.
2. Post my response to that question. This may be part of the entry or simply a comment.
3. Invite readers to do the same.

As for where these questions will come from, well…that will vary. Sometimes I’ll get them directly from other sources, sometimes I may draw inspiration from a favorite blogger, and sometimes they’ll come straight from my own ponderings.

Sound good? I hope so.

Today’s question is from Thought Questions, a site which asks a question a day with the help of a beautiful image. I intended to flip through the site to try and glean some inspiration, but found the very first question to be quite pertinent to my own life.

What did life teach you yesterday?

Yesterday wasn’t the best day for me. I was feeling the lowest of my lows—that is, mostly, lost.

I can’t know and won’t claim to know the way most people operate, but I can tell you that, for me to get through my life successfully, I need to have a sense of purpose. I don’t always keep this goal in the forefront of my mind, but it’s there for me to refer back to when I need it. For me, everything has a raison d’être. We may not be able to see it immediately, but it’s there. Thus, I think it’s very, very important for an individual to find his or her reason—a purpose, a passion, the thing that makes you come alive, the thing you can offer the world, the area in which you absolutely shine—and chase after it.

Well, for the past couple of days, I haven’t been feeling that purpose. Instead, I’ve been feeling sad, trapped, mediocre, useless, lonely, and more than a little on the hopeless side. It seemed like I’d lost my raison d’être. There isn’t one particular thing I can blame for this; it was a culmination of all the stuff that had or hadn’t been going on in my life.

I’m not going to say that I did some Blue’s Clues steps, came to a magical epiphany, and will now be focused and positive for the rest of my life. I’m inclined to believe things don’t really work that way. What I did realize is that, no matter what I achieve, I am always going to have my moments of doubt, my moments of feeling helpless and confused. It has happened before and it will happen again. But the great thing about those moments is that, when you finally do zone back into focus, you return with a renewed vigor.

“Ah,” you’ll say, peering through the undergrowth and gnarled trees of self-pity, “There’s the path! Now, I’ve been thinking about the best way to get over these roots…”

And so yesterday’s downward spiral gave way to this morning’s relative calm of sitting down and figuring out where to go from here. One thing about plans is that they have a tendency to change. The life purpose you carved for yourself in fifth grade is probably not the same one you’re chasing now, and in any case, there is more than one way to get somewhere. You have to find the way that works best for you, and sometimes, that means watching in fear and awe as the old way breaks down.

When I was little, I wanted to be a singer-songwriter. Then an English teacher. Then an author. Then a writer with a day job as a graphic designer. Then a writer with a day job as a psychologist. Then a psychologist who maybe wrote on the side. Now I’m not sure what I want to do—I love to write, I think psychology is one of the most varied and interesting subjects of study on the planet, I’m an activist at heart, and, hey, I still sing all the time.

But it doesn’t really matter what I end up doing. See, under the rich chocolate coating of all of the things I love is one thing I love even more: people. I want to give my contribution to making the world a better place for us to be. Whether that happens through my writing, through counseling practice, or through some questionable singing ability is much less important than that it happens at all.

I’ll leave you with this song that’s been tugging at my heartstrings today.

Don’t forget to leave your answer to today’s question in a comment! (You don’t need a WordPress account to leave one.) Also, please tell me what you think about the idea of having these Ask Yourself entries. I’d love to hear feedback! (: