Just wanted to say a quick hello and Happy Thanksgiving. It's an interesting day where families get together and we're invited to consider the things for which we're thankful. i suppose this holiday, like pretty much every holiday, can look and feel a lot of different ways. In some homes, i imagine it's epic and people stand and share aloud the things they're thankful for. For others, it might just be a lot of football on television and conversations that stick close to the surface. Maybe it's a day you love and look forward to, an easy day. Maybe it's a difficult day, rooms filled with elephants, things left unsaid or people simply missing...

No matter which version sounds familiar, i think there's something powerful about taking a day or even some fraction of a day and pausing to consider that we have some things to be thankful for. Because if we're not careful, we start to buy the lies... We start to believe that we have nothing or that we are nothing or that we're alone. Shame creeps in and tells us that we're stuck, that we're too far gone, that our family is broken beyond repair...

Maybe Thanksgiving is a chance to remember that which is true, and to say it in the face of the lies. i think it's important to remember that the story isn't over, that there are things worth fighting for and living for, that beauty still happens and love still happens. Hope and redemption as well.

Take a moment tonight and consider these things.
What do you have to be thankful for?
Who do you love?
Who loves you?
Who needs you?
What are your dreams?
What's worth fighting for?
What's worth running after?

Consider the air in your lungs. It will be gone one day, and these chapters will close. If i had to guess, i would say you're early in your story. There is still a lot of time for hope to happen, for change to find you, for love and beauty and truth and songs you haven't even heard yet.

Take a moment tonight and remember the best of your story. And if it feels like there's too many ugly pages, then please know that you are free to be honest, that you were meant to be honest, that we all need that - we need people and places where we can say those things, where we can begin to understand, where we can begin to let go... It's okay to be honest.

i've been obsessed with The Fray's new single "You Found Me" for the last week, playing it for everyone, making them listen. i think it's the honesty... The song is basically a conversation with God, the things you're not supposed to say:

Guy runs into God and asks Him where the heck He's been.

God says "Ask anything."

He asks "Where were you when everything was falling apart?"

i am full-blown in love with the bridge, beyond explanation. All i know is that it's been moving some things around in me. He sings this with urgency:
"Early morning, the city breaks, i've been calling for years and years and years and years and you never left me no messages, you never sent me no letters. You've got some kind of nerve..."

Whoa. You're not supposed to talk to God like that... right?

Or maybe God can handle it. Maybe God can handle my pain and my questions. Maybe God would prefer the most honest version of me.

i'm not sure what you believe about God, or conversations with God... Perhaps that's a separate conversation. i guess i'm just writing to say that it's okay to be honest, that pain shouldn't stay silent. Questions shouldn't stay silent. We need to say these things out loud. Perhaps hope or healing or even faith, perhaps it begins there, with honesty.

This week i was reminded that i am thankful for the fact that it's okay to be honest, that maybe change starts there.

Happy Thanksgiving.
Peace to you tonight, from Byron's living room, which is currently filled with life.
: )
jamie

PS: We'll have some more info Monday or Tuesday... Wanted to share this for now:


PSS: Our New Movement (Love is the Movement) shirt is now available in blue, exclusively at Hot Topic stores across the USA. You'll also find LOVE hoodies and a couple different shirts... The HT folks have been really good to us so go check out the New Blue if you get a moment at the mall.