Posts Tagged: "Jake Owensby"

complex people post

I am You Are We Are Complex.

- - Life With God, Uncategorized

A few months ago, I stumbled across this quote by the avant-garde Icelandic singer Björk:

I am very stupid, I am intelligent. I’m clumsy, I’m a coward, I’m funny, I’m witty. I’m a five year old and I’m a sixty year old and I don’t want to let any of these things go.

3.-Björk-Vulnicura-album-art

Something about her words rang true to me. Of course, I’d change some of the words to more accurately reflect my quirks and strengths, and I’m guessing you would too… but you see what I mean, right?

I am, you are, we are complex.

There is never just a simple label, one-word descriptor, that can fully represent the complexity of who we are. Maybe it’s a personality thing, but I resist being crammed into a box. Whenever someone has “figured me out,” my soul smirks with delight over this wonderful little secret: that is barely a crumb of who I am.

It’s easy for me to hold this truth that I am complex. More difficult for me is remembering this truth when someone else is bothering me or disagreeing with me or just being stupid. Because everything in me wants to throw a label on them, give a one-word descriptor, and cram them into a box… but that would be intellectually dishonest of me and I know better.

Bishop Jake Owensby recently… Read More

being the church is like dancing post

Body Of Truth (Being The Church Is Like Dancing)

- - Guest Posts, Life With God, Uncategorized

*picture – “Children Dance” by William H. Johnson

Today’s post comes from Jake Owensby’s blog: Pelican Anglican… (which has quickly become one of my absolute favorites)

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A friend of mine from South Louisiana told me, “Those Cajun boys know how to dance.” She was talking fondly about a particular young Cajun man as if to say, “I love dancing with that guy.”

I wondered what it must be like to dance so well that other people want to dance with me for the sheer joy of it. To move with such energy and grace and abandon that others are swept up in the movement.

From time to time I find myself—with some reluctance—on a dance floor. While I’m under no illusions about my abilities, I do still aim for a sort of John Travolta thing.

I’m not thinking of the wiry, lithe Travolta of “Saturday Night Fever.” Instead, I picture myself as the older, chunkier Travolta of “Pulp Fiction.”

In that film, his Vincent and Uma Thurman’s Mia win a twist competition at a fifties-themed restaurant called Jack Rabbit Slim’s. Their version of the twist was way cooler and, well, hotter than anything Chubby Checker ever dreamed of.

My flailing arms and wooden footwork bear no resemblance to Travolta’s sensuously effortless turning and twisting. A fair description of my dance moves might include words like awkward and stiff.

And yet, despite my clumsiness, my wife Joy and I have fun when we dance. It always takes me a few minutes to get past my self-consciousness, to push through my fear of… Read More