Once there was a girl, who decided to create a blog post with a semi-long title just for fun.

Hi. I am Jolie. Here is a picture of me.

Sometimes I write in short, journalistic sentences simply because I know it will drive English teachers and students crazy. Wow, I did not realize the picture would be so big. I wrote the sentence about the journalistic sentences before I pressed the upload button. I should apologize for my writing because this blog is going to be random, and completely stream of consciousness. I take that back, I just used the delete button. Anyway, I'll try to make my thoughts as real and organic as possible.

Well, I have a xanga. I feel like blogspot is way more...How do you say?...For in depth discussions. My xanga will remain, but for funny stories about my life that will amuse the kids that subscribe to it. My blogspot will be my attempt to impress the world with my incredible agile mind and persuasive writing skills. Ok but seriously, I gave up blogging for lent. (To be honest, my original idea for Lent failed, but I realized I hadn't blogged since before Ash Wednesday, so I decided that's what I was giving up.) So now I'm back like a vandal, with even more blogspace than before.

Now for the purpose of this blog. I will be sharing my thoughts on my recent readings and journaling. This will be for a few to see, while my xanga will be for many. I may be posting lyrics for people to tell me how freaking awesome they are. I may be posting things that sound scary, heretical, and downright heathenistic. I hope you forgive me and just remember that I am on the same journey as you. I hope you will be gentle. This blog is generally to facilitate conversation, so converse with me, and I shall converse with you. I will try to be real without walls, and I hope you will be too.

And now to the title of my blog. I spent 15 minutes trying to come up with a cool title like "Be the Ball" or something else. Everything was taken. Everything that came to my head sounded cheesy and way "uncool". So I decided on this title. I will try to explain it. It sounds cool, and it means something. Right now, I feel as if I'm in the process of rising above something. Rising above doubt, pain, death, hurt, pride, legalism, judgemental spirits, and other things that I so often deal with. But I'm not rising out of my own power. I'm rising on a wind that has been present long before I came here to have these doubts. It is a loving, hopeful, scary, illuminating, graceful wind that carries above the things of earth to a higher place. A love initiated by a man who just happened to rise and carry us to His Father on this day. I'm also rising on the winds of change. So much is changing in our world today, and I'm jumping on the bandwagon with some of the change that I see to be most important. I'm tagging along on this emerging church fad, and I'm trying to find a more practical approach to initiating such change in a college environment. I hope you will help me in sharing your thoughts on this as well. I am rising on the missional wind hoping to fly to others to share love to those who are loveless in this world. I want to find them close to me and far away. Help me find them. Give me suggestions on who needs to most love. "I rise above all the flattery and frowns." What a line. Flattery gives us pride. Frowns hurt our confidence. Let's rise above the two extremes and exhibit love in every possible way.

To finish, I will attempt to paint a picture of something I noticed. I sat at Starbucks with three of my best friends the other day (Many of my posts will extend from conversations beginning at coffee shops. You will notice that while I do not drink coffee, it is for this reason I love going to coffee shops and drinking hot chocolate.) I noticed how we have changed. We have grown so much since the first night we spent there. I met two of them through one of them, and now we are the four. We sit for hours till it closes laughing, wondering, making fun of ourselves, and after a while we turn to serious topics without knowing how. A few "hikeschoolers" decide it would be funny to set off their car alarms just to be annoying. We progress to talking about how stupid they are, and then proceed to set our own alarms off and burst into laughing and cheering. How silly we become on a whim.

One of them has brown short hair. She is the mother. She tells me what to do sometimes. Sometimes I don't like that. Other times it makes me laugh. She likes to talk with her tiny hands and one can tell what she is saying without having to hear her speak. She loves people a lot. She has a mole in the middle of her forehead. She likes to joke about how she should tan, then paint her mole red, and move to India to do ministry. She insists she would fit right in. She has a laugh that could knock a baby to its knees. If she laughed into a microphone, she could blow small speakers. When we are together, we all laugh like that. Someone should record our conversations. Someday she will marry a really hot boy, and we will all be jealous.

The other has red/blonde (usually we call this strawberry blonde, but she is special) curly hair. She might be the most independent of us all. She is beautiful, and we comment on how she looks so good tonight. She always looks good. She could wear a T-shirt and basketball shorts, and I would think she looked good. She is our free-spirit. She is the daughter of an artist with an oil-man as a stepdad, and she is the perfect combination of innocence and maturity. She throws her head back when she laughs. She responds to film. I want her to own a museum (if you can own museums). If you can't, then I want her to be the curator. She could tell me all these wonderful things about art, creativity and beauty whenever I need a break from boring science things. She should write books. She should read more. Her eyes light up if you act really excited to see her. If she gets mad, I don't like it. She will be in the Peace Corps. She's a Republican. A socially active Republican. That's why I like her.

The last I have known longest. Even when we weren't best friends I knew that someday we would be. She doesn't really know that. I guess now she does since I'm posting it publicly. Her hair is longer now. When it isn't curled, it is as long as mine. I can remember all of her hairstyles. I have a lot of pictures with her. Jesus had John, and I have her. We talk about how if people saw us, they would not guess that we are best friends. I tease her about her dark clothing and her "emoness". She teases me about wearing polos all the time and acting like a prep. We are different people, but we understand each other better than anyone else possibly can. It's impossible to lie to each other. We know the nervous looks on each others faces. She has cried and snotted on me before. I know how her swallows show her state of mind. She has stopped talking with her hands, because people made fun of her. She has a distinct walk, and her run makes me laugh. She is the most talented person I have come in contact with. She writes really good songs, and she plays music like it's her way to break through walls. When she plays her wrists are always in the right position and her fingers look more slender on ivory. You should get to know her. She has taught me love and life and laughter.

These three young women teach me. I love them. Conversations often begin with them, and always end with them. We have all gone our separate ways, but when we come together at Northwest Expressway and Rockwell, the scenery is the same. Our hearts have changed, but our love has not. I hope you find friendships like that. Friends who aren't your friends because of what that they can get from you. Friends who aren't your friends because they happen to go to your personal religious club. Friends who aren't your friends because they wear the same clothes. Friends who aren't your friends because they aspire to the same goals and dreams. But companions and comrades. People who are with you on your journey. People who are for you. People who will get mad at you and even in the anger, you know they adore and see you. People who see you. See through you. Notice you. People who rise with you.