trying to catch up

I really don't want to write anything tonight, but I am for three reasons:
1. I haven't written anything in about a week.
2. I'm procrastinating.
3. I'm awake.
So the last blog was written last Monday. Since then Amy left, but she'll be back next week, and will stay for good. My mom came on Thursday, and we had a really great time together. Thursday night was spent roaming Pearl Street and playing some speed scrabble with Andy and Tara. On Friday, we got up early and went to Red Rocks (this time I got on stage), and then drove to Vail. There's really not a lot to do in Vail during the summertime . . . I mean, it's gorgeous and well-worth the amazing drive through the Rockies, but I imagine it's much better during the winter, when I imagine it looks like a quaint European village nestled between the mountains. The rest of our time was spent in Boulder. Saturday we went to breakfast at my new favorite place, Burnt Toast, and then we explored the Farmer's Market, where numerous people from Boulder come to sell fruits and vegetables, flowers, and many other random organic types of things. That night we went to a baby shower for Lisa and Betsy (due any time now! yea!). Sunday was church, and later that day we painted the living room and dining room in our apartment. I'll try to post pictures soon. The walls are about the color of the lighter blue on the graphic above (the stripe below "becoming boulder), which I thought would be an interesting color to put behind my red furniture. I like it a lot, but I now realize that all the french vintage types of things I had before no longer look quite right, so I guess I'll be doing some redecorating soon. And on Monday my mom left. It's great to have people here. Really, I love it, and anyone is welcome any time, but it really does wear me out quite a bit. Even when people don't want or need to be entertained all day long, I feel like I have to. Maybe I just need to get over feeling the need to please people all the time.

Today was the first day in about two weeks that I've felt like it was time to get back into a normal routine. I spent a lot of time working on a freelance project here at the house, and then I had a meeting, and after that, I went and watched Donnie and Daniel play at an open mic night at The Republic of Boulder, which was really great. They're amazing musicans and songwriters. Having all these musician friends really does help to ease the pain I'm still feeling from missing out on Coldplay. :) I did just find out that Bright Eyes is coming to Boulder in November. So that helps too.

Okay, I'm going to quit my procrastinating and get to work. Sorry this one wasn't all that interesting. I'll try to do something interesting tomorrow. :)

friends, fire, and rock and roll

kevinmandy
Originally uploaded by mandyloula.

So Shauna should be doubly happy today because I'm posting two separate entries in oen night. (See #1 below.)

After the prayer walk at Naropa, I drove up to Johnstown (tiny town about thirty minutes north of Boulder) to see my good friends Red Umbrella and Seven Glory. It's still really strange to me that these two bands are touring together. My friends Gabe and Fred play in Seven Glory. We first met in college at Indiana Wesleyan. Just last October, I met the guys from Red Umbrella, who are from Canada, and found out that they knew Seven Glory. And now they're all touring together. it's always odd when two friendship worlds combine. :)

Anyway, so I went up to Johnstown. I'll admit, I was very excited to see the guys. Like I said a few posts ago, it's always very refreshing to see familiar faces from outside of my current situation. Not that I don't love the people who live with me in Boulder . . . there's just something very refreshing about seeing someone else. I have a special place in my heart for each of the guys in the band, but I was especially excited to see Kevin. Like I said earlier, we met back in October very randomly at a concert in Chillicothe. I was just home for my friend's wedding, and went to this small venue in our town because some of my friends were there. Chris Free tried to play a trick on me by getting Kevin to try and convince me that we knew each other. Long story short, we hit it off, and have been friends ever since.

And it's strange to think about how that small decision to go to the concert has impacted my life. Kevin has been such an amazing friend and has traveled every step of this journey from Indiana to Boulder with me. Honestly, the road hasn't always been fun or easy, but he's listened to me vent, cry, laugh, and tell the stories of what God is doing in my life and in the lives of people in Boulder. He is just such a faithful friend. So, needless to say, I'm really glad I went home to Chillicothe that weekend. I'm sure I still would have made it to Boulder and would still be loving my life here even if I wouldn't have met him, but there would have been a lot more moments of loneliness and one less faithful friend to call up when I had something to share.

So there's my little plug for Kevin. :) He's just such a great guy and is really good at telling me how much he appreciates me, so I just wanted to make it known that the feeling is mutual. :)

Moving on . . . so I went to the concert. I've seen Red Umbrella play many times, but I have to say, I really think they just keep getting better. If you ever get a chance, check out their web site, listen to their music, or go to a show. They're fabulous. Absolutely fabulous.

After they were done playing, Kevin and I drove to Boulder and spent some time on Pearl Street. As usual, the street performers were out, and I caught one of the best street shows I had ever seen. A man and a woman were twirling fire on these long chain-type things while some guy beat on an African drum. It's kind of hard to explain, but trust me, you would have been mesmerized. Afterwards, Cara, Amy, Tara, and Niles joined us on Pearl, and we had some good conversations and more good times walking around Pearl.

You just can't beat nights like that (well, maybe only by going to a Coldplay concert). I just truly love sharing life with my friends.

prayer at naropa

Shauna says she feels bitter toward me every time she checks my blog and I haven't updated it, so this is an attempt to prevent her from having any negative feelings toward me. Also, it's about time I wrote a new blog, so she just serves as the motivating factor. Anyway . . . we'll start with Saturday . . .

I got up early (early meaning 9:00 a.m.), and met several people from our church at Naropa University, a Buddhist university in Boulder. Really, ever since I had arrived here in Boulder, I had felt God telling me that I needed to do prayer walks on the campus, but only recently had I felt him saying, "Seriously, you need to do prayer walks on the campus." And when God uses the word "seriously," you should take him, well . . . seriously. I found that some other people wanted to join me, so I organized a prayer walk for Saturday morning.

The day before I went to the campus and took a guided tour. While listening to our tour guide speak about the education he had received at Naropa, I realized that they have not only allowed Buddhist practices to influence their educational methods, but it is integrated into every aspect of student life. Just as I remember my tour guide at Indiana Wesleyan talking about the professors integrating prayer into the classroom, my tour guide at Naropa talked about how each professor integrates meditation into the classroom and the homework.

I saw several Buddhist monks wandering the campus and a few students meditating on the lawn. During my time on campus and when I visited the Shambhala Meditation Center about a month ago, I kept thinking about how serious they really were about their faith. A disciplined life is a requirement, which at first made it strange to me that Buddhism is so appealing to people--but then I realized that it's because they are so serious about it that people are attracted to it. So as I considered this today on the campus, God brought Acts 17 to mind.

In this passage (Acts 17:16-34), Paul visits Athens. After seeing that the city was full of idols, he began to preach the good news about Jesus. When questioned about what he had been saying, Paul responded by complimenting the Athenians on their religiosity. (As he walked around their city, he had even seen an idol to an unknown god.) Paul then proclaims to them that the "unknown god" they had been worshiping is the true God, living God. To further communicate truth, Paul even quotes one of their own poets, and then explains how it relates to the living God. Paul used what they already knew, or what they did not fully understand, to explain the truth of the gospel. He saw that their hearts were bent toward God; they simply did not know who the true God was.

I feel that with many of the students who attend Naropa, the situation is very similar. They are attracted to spirituality, to a life of discipline, to serving others, to living in community. But they are on a path that will lead them only to emptiness and a loss of themselves. Even as I read over some of the literature I picked up on the campus, I was struck by a quote from the Dalai Lama. He said, "It's time to move away from our habitual preoccupation with self. It's time to turn our concern to the wider community with whom we are connected." How true this is for all of us. But the way to turning from ourselves is not by meditation or emptying ourselves, it's by allowing Christ to transform us.

So on Saturday about 12 of us gathered to pray on the campus--that God would provide opportunities to come into contact with these students, that they would seek truth and find it, and that God would give us wisdom to show them how what they already believe and practice can be shifted to be seen through the lens of the gospel. I've also been asking God that he would continue to break my heart for this community. They are such a beautiful and devoted people, and I believe we have a lot to learn from them--their desire to lose sight of themselves and to show others compassion. I would just love to communicate the joy of allowing God to give us a new self--one that is Christlike and then allowing compassion to flow from his heart, now our own.

if God is love . . .

all we need
Originally uploaded by mandyloula.

Well, the last week has been crazy. Amy Nixon came in on Saturday and has been staying with us. Within three days, she had a job, a place to live, and a roommate. Wow. That's fast. So she will be moving out here right after Labor Day. So insane.

Also, Chris Free and his friend Blake stopped by for a couple of days to visit and see the town. They're taking the ultimate road trip out to California together. I'm very jealous. I've never driven west of Breckenridge, and I live in the West. Weird. Someday I'm going to hop in my car and just keep driving until I reach the Pacific. Anyway, I tried to give them the full Boulder experience. We started our day out by going to Pearl Street, eating at one of my favorite little breweries, then wandering the town. Then we drove out to Boulder Canyon and hiked back to Boulder Falls. Definitely one of my favorite places in the area. Then we came back into town, and I took them up Flagstaff, which always makes me kind of want to pee my pants a little. I'm just afraid of heights, and there are some pretty big dropoffs. I was going pretty slow on the way down . . . It's a sure sign you might be going a little too slow when bikers are passing you and people are riding your tail when you're going down a mountain. Later that night we went to the Sink, which is where Robert Redford used to be a janitor when he went to CU. Also, the walls are covered in artwork/graffiti from like the 70s or something. And then, my favorite part of the day--we went to the Republic of Boulder, which is kind of a bar, kind of a coffee house, kind of a hooka bar. My friends Donnie and Daniel were performing there, and with all the hooka and the hippies, it gave the boys a pretty good idea of what Boulder was all about. I think Chris enjoyed it . . . not sure about Blake. It's great to finally feel like I know where to take people when they visit. When people first came, I had no idea because I was still discovering the city for myself. But it's starting to feel much more like a home. I know where the locals go, which I guess just means that I know where I go. It's still difficult to think of myself as a local. So that was a lot of rambling about my time with Chris. But it was really great to see him and to meet Blake. Seeing old friends in this new place is always a strange experience--refreshing, yet awkward because life is so different here than home.

A lot more has happened, but it's now 12:18, and It old myself I would be in bed by 11:00. Whoops. Tomorrow I'm leading a prayer walk at Naropa University, and then Kevin and the Red Umbrella guys, as well as Gabe and the Seven Glory guys, are coming into town tomorrow night. So excited to see them. But as for now, I need sleep. More later . . .

chris and me

chrismandy
Originally uploaded by mandyloula.

chris, blake, and a beautiful colorado sky

sky
Originally uploaded by mandyloula.

how to get mandy (or any girl) to fall in love

poem
Originally uploaded by mandyloula.

It's simple: spray paint a poem about her on a sidewalk.

Today I was walking down 14th Street, and I noticed some words spraypainted in blue on the sidewalk. I then realized there were more phrases up ahead on the sidewalk . . . it was a poem about a girl.

I am very much so a hopeless romantic, so this made my heart beat just a little faster than normal, thinking that just maybe some amazing guy snuck out in the middle of the night, spraypainted a poem about his girlfriend on the sidewalk that led from her house to his, which he knew she would walk to the next morning. Upon arriving at his house, she would find him waiting for her with breakfast, flowers, and Josh Groban playing softly in the background. Knowing this was a monumental moment in her life, she would begin to tremble a bit, and a tear would gently stream down her face. And then, of course, he would kneel down, pull out a tiny, black box, and ask her to be his wife.

Yes, welcome to the mind of Mandy . . . just a little frightening, isn't it? Oh well . . . I'm allowed to dream, aren't I?

Here's the poem (just in case you can't read the words in the picture above):

There is a girl unlike any other

A happenstance alchemist
All she touches turns to gold

Although her eyes may take in poverty
They will reflect good fortunte

Should her lungs breathe in despair
They will exhale great joy

Feed her heart disgust
It will pump forth empathy

And when she wears my love
She wears it like no other

It is hers and hers alone to wear

so maybe i'm not rock and roll

chris and mandy
Originally uploaded by mandyloula.

Well, I decided that I had kept you all in suspense long enough (unless you read Shauna's comment . . . then you probably figured it out). I will not be seeing Coldplay this year. Devastating, I know. I have to work Thursday, Friday, and Saturday night, so apparently it's just not the right time for me to experience the "magic," as Kevin would say. Maybe next year. Other sad news: David Gray will be in town on Thursday night, and the show is sold out. Also, Nickel Creek will be in town on Wednesday night . . . and it's sold out. And so is the Jack Johnson show. And the John Mayer show. And the Dave Matthews show.

However, my good friends Red Umbrella, as well as my old college buddies, Seven Glory, will be in town on the 20th, and I don't believe it's sold out yet. Even if it were, I'm pretty sure they would let me in. I have a few connections. :) And Dennis really likes my cookies.

And though he's not a rock star, I'm very excited that my friend Chris Free (in the photo) will be in town next week as well! JD moves here next month, and my mom is coming to visit at the end of August. Anyone else want to come and visit me?

The last couple of days have been spent finishing up some freelance projects, and now that I'm finished, I don't really know what to do with myself. Today I attempted to reply to some e-mails that have been sitting in my inbox for the last six months (sorry to all of you whom still have not received a reply). Niles and I went to the Bookend for about three hours and worked, and now I'm back home, trying to figure out what to do for the rest of the night. Most people would go to bed at 11:30, but I didn't get out of bed until 11:00, so my sleeping schedule is a bit off.

When I feel motivated and focused I will write about what God has been doing in me and in Boulder. But not tonight. :)

i am rock and roll

Coldplay
Originally uploaded by mandyloula.

For the last few years, if you would have asked me the question, "If you could go to any concert, which one would you go see?" my answer would most definitely have been Coldplay. I fell in love with them the first time I heard "Yellow" my sophomore year of college. However, it's never worked out for me to actually go to one of their concerts. Well, this morning Shauna called to let me know that Lars has two tickets to the concert in Indianapolis for this Friday. Yes, this Friday. So, if I don't have to work on Thursday night, Friday, or Saturday morning, I might be hopping on a plane to see Coldplay. I'll find out if I have to work sometime tomorrow morning. Of course, this might seem a little extreme to some of you, but that's okay. For others, you completely understand. Either way . . . I want to go. I live for these opportunities to do something impulsive--especially if it's in the name of rock and roll.

In the words of my good friend Josh Gordon, "I am rock and roll."

girls' night

girls
Originally uploaded by mandyloula.

The guys in our group decided to have a guys' night tonight, so quite naturally, the girls decided to get together as well. While the guys ate fried chicken and watched Rambo, we went out to dinner on Pearl Street and then went back to Julie's to watch Hitch and eat ice cream.

I feel so blessed to be a part of a community of women who are loving, godly, and so much fun!. Most are married, and three out of the nine of us that were together tonight are pregnant. I know that as I live with them in this community, I will gain so much wisdom as they pass through these life stages ahead of me.

Speaking of the girls . . . Kelly (on right in the picture) wasn't there tonight because she and Chris are getting married tomorrow! Yay! I am so excited for them! Chris and Kelly--If you read this sometime after you get back from your honeymoon, know that we were all thinking of you on your wedding day! Congrats!

Cara--Sorry . . . I know you don't like this picture of you, but I didn't have any others of the girls.

procrastination

I thought it would end after college, but it turns out that I will still find anything and everything to do when I don't feel like doing something I know I need to do. For example, blogging. Or adding links to my blog page. Or reading other people's blogs.

Anyway, I'll write a more in-depth blog soon, but I just wanted to let you all know that I added some links to the side of the page (yes, another way I found to procrastinate). If you would like your site added, just let me know.

Also, I changed the settings so that anyone who looks at the page (blogger member or not) can leave a comment. I didn't realize it was possible until today. So if you're looking at the page, leave your mark by making my day and leaving me a message.

More on this later, but God is seriously on the move in Boulder. The last few days have been full of evidence of this. It's so amazing to be a part of it all!