Hi friends,

I hope this blog post finds you well – surviving the coldness of December and anticipating a good Christmas with people that you love!

The end of a year always makes me reflective, nostalgic and contemplative. There’s something about the way the year is organized – that it has a beginning and an end every 12 months. I’m relieved the western calendar only lasts 12 months…any more than that and it might feel like too much to process in one annual cycle! I like that after every 12 we get a moment to consider the last annum; to reflect on the good and bad; to remember again that we only get a set number of these years on Earth; to step outside of ourselves and the rat race and recall why we are alive. So you are seeing me today in a pensive mood, ruminating on the last twelve months in a happily reflective manner.

From reading my blogs, I hope you feel you are getting to know me – that I am letting you in deeper than just CDs or interviews…that you are seeing my heart. Some of my blog posts are just fun, or music related. But I want to make sure in ‘09 that many more of them are just me speaking straight from my heart. Vulnerability breeds vulnerability. Gandhi said “be the change you want to see in the world” and I long to see people take off their masks, get real and live daringly authentic lives. So I need to start with myself. And where better to start than here? : )

Looking back on 2008 one thing I’ve learned is the importance of simply accepting yourself. Learning to be comfortable in your own skin. Learning that God is most glorified in us when we are ourselves – rather than trying to be like everyone else, as culture and media instruct us. I’m an introvert and somewhat of a deep thinking, journalling, enjoying-sitting-up-on-a-hill with a book type of person. I used to think that made me dull, or that somehow I was broken, compared to my bubbly extrovert comrades. This year I’ve learned that it takes all sorts to make up the world. I just need to be me, and bring my personality into the mix of the planet. My extrovert friends say they love my quiet spirit, my listening ear and the peace I bring. All of those reserves come from the time I spend alone – which proves that I love others best by being myself. When I try and be around people all the time, I end up with an empty tank and have nothing to give. So that’s a precious lesson from ‘08.

The other main lesson has been that I long to be as awake and alive as possible. The more I look at the world, the more I feel like most of the population is asleep. Caught in the rat race of impressing The Jones’s. Living to accumulate stuff, unaware that any moment their last breath could come and they would have missed the whole point of life. Oxford was an intensive place to study. Everyone was on a mission to get the best job in England, the biggest salary and the greatest power. I walked away having studied Jesus, Luther, Tozer, Wesley, Lewis, Bonhoeffer, and felt like they were really missing the point. We all have a higher purpose than career and position. And it only takes one person to change the world. I believe that to this day.

So I want to make sure I am as fully awake and alive as possible as I journey into ‘09. I watched some of my favorite movies again over the past two months, to remind my heart to wake up. I believe that’s why we resonate so deeply with key moments in movies where people come to their senses or realize a sense of destiny – because we were made to have that revelation ourselves!

Some favorite moments like that for me are….

- In Dead Poets Society, Keating tells the boys to lean in and look at the faces of the boys from long ago, captured in black and white photographs. He says ‘gather ye rosebuds while ye may…. Carpe diem boys…..make your lives extraodinary”…

- In the Matrix, when Neo is offered the choice of continuing to live his blind existence, or to take the pill and wake up to reality. He then takes the pill and with newborn eyes, sees the world from outside. I feel like that has happened to me, the more I see Earth from the perspective of eternity…. or even in taking a long walk and looking down on my city from a high hill – the people and cars speed by below like ants or toy cars in a celestial game. It all looks so frenetic and crazy. Seeing from the outside, looking in.

- In Pay It Forward, when after the death of the little boy, the crowds of people come with candles and stand outside the mother’s home. Each candle representing a life that had been touched and changed by the ideas of a small boy, proving that a simple idea lived out with bold courage can alter even our cold, hard world.

- Braveheart, where Mel Gibson endures torture and excruciating pain for the sake of a cause bigger than his own life…shouting “freedom!” at the top of his lungs. He had his eyes opened to a reality and mission bigger than suffering, deeper than pain and worth more than even life itself. We have that cause as citizens of eternity.

- Shawshank Redemption, when he finally breaks out of prison and stands for the first time in over 10 years with the pouring rain on his bare skin…arms outstretched, drinking in the feeling of being alive, free and awake.

- Gladiator, when he finally is at the end of his suffering and dies…waking up in the most beautiful cornfield, suddenly alive to eternity, walkig freely in Heaven…realizing that everything on earth was momentary and somewhat of a dream.

- Narnia, when the children who were only used to their normal life, suddenly walk through the wardrobe and find themselves in a totally ‘other’ and numinous reality – a whole other world. They look back on time and space with different eyes. Like The Matrix’s Neo, they look from the outside in. Like John the Beloved in Revelation 4, taken to another place and looking back at our bubble of human existence with new eyes.

The list goes on and on for me, as I have many favorites! But all that to say… when I watch these movies something deep inside me stirs and says ‘Vicky – wake up, be alive, change the world, don’t get caught in the rat race, don’t just drift into surviving…carpe diem…seize every moment to be aware, alive, to love deeply, to feel all the spectrum of joy and pain”. And then after the movie has ended and a few days have passed I find I slip back into ‘normal life’ and forget all those grand emotions and desires.

For 2009 I want to continually remind myself to stay awake. To take Neo’s pill and permenantly see life through new eyes – the eyes of the Holy Spirit, the perspective of eternity. I don’t ever want to live a “normal” life. I want to live like I am dying. To be unconcerned about possessions, positions or reputation. I just want to follow Jesus and love people well. I know that’s all that counts on the final day.

So what about you? Are you awake? Are you alive? Or are you crusing through life, just getting by? Why don’t we all make time this Christmas holiday to take some hours alone in a solitary place and ask our deep heart “am I really living or just surviving?” Life is just a breath, a moment, a whisper. Don’t let it pass you by. You are immensely powerful – more than you know. Wake up – and live awake. 2009 would sure look a lot different from most of our 2008s.

I challenge you – lets live 2009 wide awake.