On Shyness, Travel, and Extroversion

When I was first getting to know my husband-to-be on our tour from Illinois to Oregon, I remarked offhandedly that I’m really shy. Shocked, Zachary replied, “You’re the least shyest person I know!”

This was a revelation to me, although it shouldn’t have been. I considered what he said. I realized that the entire trip, I had been ridiculously extroverted, especially when I’d noticed (with much gleeful hand-rubbing) that he was shy. My desire to befriend him made me chase him like a lion after a gazelle, pestering him with question upon question and sharing all about myself. 

As I thought back to my other travels, I realized that this was always how I acted on the road. I wanted to talk to everyone; I wanted to hear their stories. I wanted to talk about the weather and culture and history of where they come from. I wanted to hear about their families and talk about mine. I wanted to know what they believe about God and religion and morality. I wanted to know their passions, their favorite food, their travel adventures. On all my trips, I was anything but shy!

Yet at home, both then and now, I all too often dissolve into the silent girl squirming under someone’s attentive gaze, avoiding eye contact and trying very hard to keep my hands still— as I have done almost my entire life.

A combination of my parents’ hard work, some friends pursuing me in my awkward teenage years, and drama class coaxed me out of my initial shell. I learned that I didn’t have to be shy around strangers. I often overcompensated and seemed eager to the point of maniacal attention. But I preferred to be seen as annoying rather than unnoticeable, because I find people fascinating.

Travel is the perfect construct for meeting new people and having intense conversations, whether it’s the girl you’re volunteering with, the guy you meet at the hostel, or the random lady walking her dog in your sightseeing town. Almost everyone is willing to talk to you if you’re from out of town.

At home, those constructs go away. My fearless travel persona starts to melt at the edges. I forget to make eye contact with the Walmart clerk. I stutter and stare at the floor. I stand in the corner at a party, oddly exhausted at the thought of trying to initiate a conversation. 

Over and over, I’ve tried to figure out the difference between people I don’t know on the road and people I don’t know at home. I haven’t been able to figure it out yet. 

So if I see you in person and I seem stiff or awkward— or if I’m way too extroverted and up in your face— please forgive me. It’s a delicate balance, and staying on that tightrope is proving to be much, much harder than I expected.

~~~

Travel Tip Tuesdays: 15 Ways to Pass Time in an Airport

Also, 16: Taking useless pictures

(These tips also apply to a bus/train station, or anywhere else you’re stuck for a while.)

1. Read. 

2. Wave at people. See how many you can get to wave back.

3. Look first at a person’s shoes and see if you can guess what that person looks like.

4. Do some stretches or discreet exercises (balancing on one foot is an excellent core exercise). 

5. Watch some people talking out of earshot and make up their conversation.

6. Take a walk. Bonus points if there are any moving sidewalks to ride.

7. Journal.

And 17: Getting other people to take pictures of you.

8. Give yourself a neck or hand massage.

9. Strike up a short conversation with the person next to you.

10. Call home.

11. Pretend to answer a phone call and make up a ridiculous one-sided conversation (or gibberish words) that will make the people around you curious.

12. Doodle.

13. Memorize a quote (or Bible verse) or the words to a song you’ve been meaning to learn by heart.

14. Spend some time in front of the bathroom mirror trying out new hairstyles.

15. Walk up to the wrong gate, get a panicked look, drop your bag, pick it up in a flustered way, and dash off to the next gate. Repeat.

~~~

And Other Random Things You See in Illinois

On the way to Chicago to catch a flight to Europe last year, I saw a boxy peach-colored church along the highway. It was named “The Friendly Temple of God in Jesus Christ.” 

Am I the only one who gets an image of robe-clad Levitical priests with censers loudly greeting people and handing out bulletins?

~~~

Painted Desert, Arizona

Vanilla and Butter, or, The Need for a Food-Buying Intervention

Whenever I go to the grocery store, I always buy certain things. Zach and I go through some staples at an alarming rate, so I always put them on my list, regardless of whether or not I’ve checked the cupboards. Last week, I discovered two bottles of vanilla squirreled away in the back shelf, in addition to the half-empty bottle I already had. Three bottles of vanilla! How silly of me! 

As is my habit, yesterday while grocery shopping I bought a pound of butter (in addition to about thirty pounds of other food which I carried in my backpack from Aldi to my house). What I didn’t notice was that when I threw it in the left-hand corner of the top shelf, behind the milk, it was joining a breeding ground. Later last night, when I was rearranging the refrigerator, Zach asked, “Why did you tell me to buy butter the other day?”

I shrugged. “We go through butter really fast,” I said.

Zach stared hard into the back left-hand corner. Then he began pulling out packets of butter. More and more and more of them.

We ended up with this:

We had six pounds of butter in the fridge.

SIX POUNDS.

(And that’s not even counting the half-pound of clarified butter in the cupboard.)

We fell on the floor, we were laughing so hard. And Zach said, “You need to write a blog about this.”

“Yes,” I said. “Yes, I do.”

~~~

Travel Tip Tuesdays: Sparking Creativity on the Road

Any kind of art, be it writing, music, or painting, thrives on routine. When I fall into a pattern of everyday habits, boy, am I productive. I get stuff done, I accomplish tasks, I pound out word counts, and I keep the ice cube tray filled. But too much routine can eventually turn your brain to mush, and it’s important to shake yourself up every once in a while.

There are many ways to do this, but one of the best ways is to take a trip, no matter how short. Just getting away from your familiar haunts can wake you up in a powerful way. Here are seven ways that you can use travel (or shorter excursions from home) to spark your creativity.

1. Do something out of the ordinary. Get lost in a city, talk to homeless people, hike a dangerous trail, make pancakes without a recipe (believe me, this was a big deal when I first did it). Use a trip as an excuse to do something you wouldn’t normally do, which will stimulate you in new ways.

"Here I am in 'The Shakespeare Garden.'
I am totally waxing poetic right now."

2. Read a book. Travel is a great time to read that book (or two or three) that you haven’t gotten around to in your everyday life. Reading or listening to a good book will always stimulate your mind, no matter your art form.

3. Immerse yourself in something unfamiliar. Growing up in the conservative Midwest, I had never spent a significant amount of time with hardcore politically-liberal people before the autumn of 2010. Two weeks of picking blueberries with amazing crazy hippies shook up my world and made me think about the liberal perspective in a whole new way. These experiences will make you a more well-rounded person, which then makes you a better artist.

I drew this in Florida.

4. Sightsee purposefully. Don’t just rush through the sights because you have to— choose which ones really interest you and spend some time with them. It doesn’t matter if everyone tells you to go to the Golden Gate Bridge: if you want to spend the whole day at Alcatraz, then spend the whole day at Alcatraz. (Or, in my case, vice versa.)

5. Talk to people. People are the best inspiration of all, and you can meet some pretty awesome/crazy/crazy-awesome people on the road! If you’re unsure how to engage people, try these tips.

6. Engage in a different creative form. I’m a writer, so when I traveled, I drew a lot and played music wherever I could find a piano. A different art form engages your brain in a new and powerful way.

7. Let your mind rest. When I’m at home, I’m constantly thinking of my to-do list. A trip gives you permission to take a break from all that. Don’t worry about the things you need to do. And don’t fry your brain with Facebook, either— learn to spend time without the noise. It’s amazing what kinds of creativity can spring forth in the midst of silence.

~~~

Cheap Factory-Made Woolly Bears

On our walk to Pere Marquette last week, Zachary and I saw lots of caterpillars crawling across the roads. For the first twenty or so I stopped and made a little squee and talked about how cute they were, but for the next several dozen I was content to simply look at them. 

The most common caterpillar we saw was the Woolly Bear, a caterpillar which turns into the Isabella Tiger Moth. This is what one looks like as a caterpillar:

And this Wikipedia link will show you the moth they turn into, as well as some crazy facts (they freeze solid during the winter, apparently!).

Farmers’ lore says that you can tell how long the winter is going to be by looking at the band of orange-brown between a wooly bear’s black ends. If it’s narrow, the winter will be harsh. If it’s wide, the winter will be mild.

I, of course, got the prediction backwards, and so spent the entire walk exclaiming what a crazy harsh winter this was going to be! The band was very wide in every caterpillar we saw. Some of the caterpillars had barely a smidgen of black on either end, and others only had a black end on their head. Zach remarked that they look like they had been cut from one long cylinder of striped fuzz.

“There must be a factory where a slicer cuts off the little segments,” Zach said. “But the slicer isn’t very precise, so the caterpillars all look different.”

Within seconds, we had determined that these caterpillars were the result of a cheap factory line (probably made in China), being mass-produced and edging out the good old-fashioned handmade woolly bears. “Why, in my day, our caterpillars were painstakingly handcrafted, not like this cheap factory junk. And they had uniform bands of color, doggonit!”

Have I mentioned that I love autumn, long walks, and my husband?

~~~

Twin Fawns and Mother, San Juan Island, Washington

15 Reasons I Love Autumn

(Halfway through this list, I realized that many of these reasons have less to do with autumn and more to do with summer being over. But if you live in St. Louis, you can agree with me that summer being over is the best part of autumn, anyway.)

1. Bonfires.

2. Food roasted over bonfires.

3. Good hiking weather.

4. The sun being mild enough that I don’t get sunburned.

5. The sound of migrating geese overhead (even though the majority of geese in St. Louis don’t migrate).

6. 80 degrees seeming cool after the murderously hot summer.

7. Wearing boots.

8. Watching my breath smoke in the air.

9. A holiday that involves both costumes and candy.

10. The colors, not only of the changing leaves, but of the grasses and sunlight.

11. Wearing clothes for fashion instead of figuring out how to dress in a way to avoid both sunburn and heatstroke.

12. Hot soups and stews tasting good again.

13. Crunching dry leaves underfoot.

14. Wearing long sleeves, which double as mittens and potholders.

15. The harvest moon.

What would you add to this list?

A 20-Mile Stroll to Pere Marquette

For months now, Zachary and I have been talking about walking to Pere Marquette State Park. We kept on deciding against it, mostly because we’d need some willing victims to meet us for a picnic out there to justify the walk, and also because the summer weather is not the greatest for a twenty-mile jaunt. But yesterday, with a cloudy autumn sky, a chilly breeze blowing, and my brother and mom interested in a picnic by the river, we found the perfect time.

We left around 9:30 from my parents’ house, which was marginally closer to our destination. After a mile of walking along a busy street and through a strip of fast-food joints and gas stations, we turned to the left, skirted an industrial district, and found ourselves on a wide open country road.

For a couple hours we rambled along the roads by cornfields and farmhouses. We even saw two bald eagles wheeling far overhead, cackling to each other in metallic-sounding chuckles. Eventually we reached the Golden Eagle Ferry, which (for $3 a head), bore us across the Mississippi River to the banks of Calhoun County, Illinois. 

The roads in Calhoun County are narrow, tortuous, and full of steep hills, winding us through forests, along sweeping empty hillsides of harvested barley, and past peach orchards, mansions, trailer homes, and roadside stores that sell sorghum molasses by the quart. Our road took us through a neighborhood on the spine of Calhoun County, where the land fell away on either side, showing us broken woods and farmland to the right, and densely-wooded countryside to the left that obscured the rivers and marched up to the bluffs where Pere Marquette resides. (Unfortunately, I considered it too much work to dig through the backpack for a camera at this point, so I have no photos of that.)

Next our road plunged downward, and within a couple hours we found ourselves walking on the shoulder of a highway that delved through the heart of the Two Rivers Wildlife Preserve, a wetlands habitat reserved for migrating birds. We saw few birds, but  discovered a storm of grasshoppers. When we walked in the grass to avoid getting hit by cars, hundreds of grasshoppers, large and small, bounded out of our way.

Our final road in Calhoun County looped around a neighborhood by the waters of the Illinois River, where all the houses stand on stilts. As Zach and I walked, two friendly dogs ran over to check us out, and we chatted with their owner, a middle-aged woman in a floral print dress, standing on the stairs that led up to her house. She was curious about the backpack, and we told her that we were walking to Pere Marquette from St. Charles. Her response was, “Why?”

We crossed the Brussels Ferry, walked along a shoulder of the busy road for a while, then took to the bike trail that led us to the park. We were now racing my brother and mom, and managed to arrive at the picnic area about five minutes before they did. We laid down on the concrete and let out sighs of relief (in between me incessantly yelling, “Boo-ya!”). The walk, from start to finish, was a bit more than 20 miles.

Christian and Mom arrived with picnic gear in hand, and I limped over to greet them.

“So, we going to do any hiking?” Christian asked.

I looked at Zach. Zach looked at me. We both shrugged.

So we went hiking.

Travel Tip Tuesdays: Solitude and the Road

Hiking solo near Denver, Colorado, 2011.

Some people excel at solitude— they love being alone, they’d rather be alone, and they have to force themselves to be around people at all.

I am not one of those people. 

One of the toughest adjustments of being married has been all the solitude. It’s strange to me to spend a whole day without speaking to or seeing anyone else. So it may seem odd that, when I was single, I loved solo traveling. 

I’ve written about solo travel before, showing that it need not involve a lot of solitude. But still, no matter how many hostels you visit or volunteer situations you encounter, you will have a lot of alone time. How does someone who doesn’t like solitude learn to enjoy it?

This is a difficult blog to write, because everyone experiences solitude in a different way. I’m an extrovert: I tend to experience things as they happen to me instead of within me. That said, I often find myself zoning out, losing focus, or getting lost in meaningless thoughts. I’ll do my best to cover some of the bases, but I’m sure there will be a lot of you who see the giant holes in the ideas I’m covering. When you do, let me know— I’m always fascinated to hear from people who are fundamentally different from me.

Engage with the physical. One of the most important parts of enjoying solitude is to get out of your own head and into your physical body more. The more engaged you are with your surroundings, the more vivid your trip will be (and this will also give you more to think about— see point #2). Bring a camera and use the lens to help you experience detail. Try something new. Get yourself lost in a city and explore. People-watch. Touch the moss on the tree. Smell the seaweed on the docks. Taste the local cuisine. Eavesdrop on conversations. Try to put these sensations into words. Focus on the moment. Your physical experience will greatly impact your mental one.

Engage with the mental. I mentioned earlier that I zone out— that’s not the same as exploring your own head. Traveling shakes you up and refreshes your mind, but, if you’re like me, you have to be intentional about engaging with this part of yourself. Seek out new ideas. Think about what you’ve learned or experienced today. If words are your medium, keep a journal or a blog. Let your creativity flow. Draw something. Free-write. Read that book you’ve been meaning to get around to. Think about the chance conversations you had today. Pay attention to the historic plaques and the state park signs that explain the definition of brackish water. The more you stimulate your mind, the more you’ll have to think about. 

Engage with the spiritual. There are plenty of books about “connecting with your inner spirit” or whatever, but since I’m a Christian, I will speak to Christians here. We believe in a personal God, so engaging with your spiritual life does not involve tapping a vague energy or life-force— it means spending time with Someone. Solitude has been a spiritual discipline from the early days of the church, modeled by Jesus and many others. Travel strips away a lot of the walls and pretensions that we build for ourselves, and it can bring us closer to God in a powerful way. Pray. Read the Bible. Ponder and memorize scripture. Talk to God while you’re waiting for the bus or walking on the beach or trying to get the guy at the hostel to stop hitting on you. Keep your eyes and heart open to what God is trying to tell you.

In short, the key to solitude is focus. It’s too easy to zone out and sleepwalk through everything, but travel, and especially solo travel, is an invitation to sharpen our eyes, our minds, and our hearts through solitude.

~~~

Have a travel question? Leave a comment!

Highway at Sunset, Tennessee

Hayden Christensen (or, An Incredibly Mortifying Quote from My Diary)

A few days ago, I was reading through an old diary and found these exact words, written June 5th, 2002:

“Today we went to see Star Wars: Episode II, Attack of the Clones. It was cool! Awesome! Amazing! Incredible! The guy who played Anakin was an incredible actor!”

My only consolation is that when I wrote this, I was 13. This is reason number 8,647 I’m glad I’m not a teenager anymore.

Someday, I want to get a haircut here.

Where to Go: Elephant Rocks State Park, Missouri

Eons ago (1500 million years, if Wikipedia is to be trusted)— there stood a giant dome of hardened magma, laid bare to the wind and weather. The wind blew, the weather wore, and many eons later, there remained only a round granite tor, covered with gargantuan boulders looking like pebbles a giant had dropped. In the 1800s, a granite quarry appeared on the site, and miners left their graffiti in the rock. Today, that hillside is a Elephant Rocks State Park, one of the most impressive and best-loved parks in Missouri.

My husband, brother and I visited Elephant Rocks a few weeks ago, and spent a couple hours hiking the trails, climbing the boulders, and eating a picnic. We wandered up the handicap-accessible, braille-guided trail to the edge of the barren stretch of stone, then hopped over deep ridges, scrambled between round boulders, scaled steep inclines of granite, and kept on yelling, “Take my picture! Take my picture!” You could easily spend a full day exploring this park, even though it’s small. 

Why you should go: This area is a great outdoorsy destination, and is great for an easy stroll or some fun amateur rock-climbing. The view from the top of the tor is incredible, and with autumn colors just around the corner, I’m hoping to go back for another visit soon.

How to get there: You’ll have to wind through some “Missoura” back roads to get there, but it’s worth it. You can find driving directions on the park’s site.

What to bring: Wear hiking clothes, and shoes with good grips if you plan on doing any climbing. There are picnic tables and grills, so it’s a great place to bring a picnic supper. And don’t forget your camera!

What else you need to know: The park closes around dark, so be sure to get there before evening. If you have some spare time in the area, check out Johnson’s Shut-Ins or Buford Mountain Conservation Area. This trio would make a great weekend trip!

If you have hot guys to accompany you on your hike, that's even better.

Simply Magic

Two days ago, after getting up late and taking way too long to make a healthy lunch (why do celery and onions take so long to soften? Honestly!), I asked Zachary what he wanted to do on his day off. I had just gotten my paycheck, and we were ready to blow some dough.

“Let’s go to Pere Marquette,” he said.

And so we blew some dough on gas, packed a lunch, loaded up a backpack, and hit the road. We listened to Jonathan Coulton on the way up, leaving the city behind and winding along the highway beside the Muddy Mississip’, which sparkled blue under the clear October sky. At Pere Marquette, we hiked up the blue trail, watched the sun on the confluence at McAdam’s Peak, and hiked to the other side of the bluff, finally settling down to eat at Flag Pole Lookout. After we finished our summer sausage sandwiches, Zachary pulled out his copy of The Fellowship of the Ring. We sat on a stone wall with the sweeping wooded countryside beside us, and he read to me. As the air grew chillier, I donned my jacket.

We were so caught up in the story that by the time we realized we should hike back, the sun had already slipped below the horizon. We hiked the couple miles back to our car in the dark, looking at the black tree silhouettes against the rainbow-glow of sunset on the western horizon.

On the way home, we ate caramel sundaes at McDonald’s and listened to Bach’s cello suites, and once we got home, Zach continued reading Lord of the Rings to me until midnight passed and his throat was sore. We made it to the end of Book One. 

Some days are simply magic.

10 Photos of Mirrors and Reflections

I have a fascination with mirrors and reflections— I love the strange perspectives they give to reality. As a kid, one of my favorite road trip activities was staring at the rearview mirror while watching the reflections in the windows in my peripheral vision. If I did it too long, I got dizzy, but I would stare as long as I could. Now that I’m grown up, I still do that. And sometimes I take pictures, too. Sometimes multiple pictures of the same reflection. Don’t judge me. Mirrors are cool.

Self-portrait in Wyoming.

Tucson, Arizona.

Antelope Island, Utah.

Library, Seattle, Washington. It's a whole building made out of mirrors!

A tiny town whose name I cannot remember, Germany.

Same mirror from a different angle.

St. Elisabeth's Church, Nuremberg, Germany.

Building on the side of the highway, St. Peters, Missouri.

More Wyoming.

De Young Museum elevator, San Francisco, California. Also, this is the greatest picture I have ever taken.

Travel Tip Tuesdays: Lessons on Hospitality, Courtesy of My Mom

Like being a good guest, being a good host can take on myriad different forms. I have less experience hosting than I do being a guest, but I love being hospitable. I learned my hospitality skills from the best: not only my excellent couchsurfing and volunteer hosts, but from one of my greatest role models— my mom. Pragmatic, thrifty, and no-nonsense, my mom isn’t the stereotypical hostess who pours attention on guests. But she makes anyone who enters her house feel welcomed and at home. And that’s the point of hosting, isn’t it? Here are some miscellaneous techniques for no-frills hosting of overnight guests. 

Clean up the house enough to be welcoming… A dirty or disastrously-messy house can be a bit off-putting to guests. Do a quick pick-up, vacuum a floor or two, and spray some Febreze around. Be sure that all the seats are free of clutter. Throw the extra junk into a closet somewhere. Light a candle or burn incense.

I couldn't for the life of me find a good photo for this blog… so instead,
here's a picture of Mom's cockatiel, Fiddler, in a tissue box.
(That's Mom in the background, shielding her eyes from the flash.)

…but don’t freak out if it’s not very clean. It happens to all of us: we walk into our friend’s apartment and she says, “Sorry for the mess!” And we just stare awkwardly at the couple piles of clutter and feel guilty about our own much messier room back home. You are more likely to make people uncomfortable if your living room is spotless than you are if there are a few heaps of miscellaneous papers on the end table.

Provide a supply of delicious food… Food is a universal language, and almost everyone loves it. I am constantly amazed at how impressed people are by something as relatively simple as homemade cookies. Anything remotely homemade looking— even if it’s a baguette you bought at Walmart served with olive oil and a sprinkling of parmesan— is sure to make people feel honored and welcomed.

…but don’t feel pressured to make something fancy or extravagant. If all you have in the fridge is a two-dollar frozen pizza (and you can’t afford to buy anything else until payday), then have no qualms about throwing it in the oven. Food is important, and it’s great to provide a personal touch, but good hosting is about you, not your food.

Don’t ask for help… This rule only applies to “guest” guests. With family members or close friends, always ask for help!

…but readily accept help if it’s offered. Many people (like me) would rather help out than sit around. Give your guest a clear and easy task and use the time as a chance to talk.

Engage your guests… When it comes down to interacting with people, no amount of advice can prepare you— you just need to practice. If you are relaxed, your guests will relax. If sitting and talking is making you antsy, find an activity everyone enjoys. And of course, be prepared to be a tour guide!

…but go to bed when you’re tired. Don’t force yourself to stay up late for guests— if you’re tired, stand up, announce that the house is theirs, ask them if there’s anything else they need, tell them to grab something from the pantry if they get hungry (and give specific examples of snack options to make sure they know you mean it), and then go to bed. It’s amazing how liberating for guests this simple act can be. It says, “I trust you with this house, and I don’t have to entertain you— as long as you’re here, you’re a member of the family.”

As I said, there are many different kinds of hosting. But “Raid the fridge, I’m going to bed now” hosting is still, by far, my favorite. 

~~~

15 Items on My Travel Bucket List

Since my life of nomadism has officially come to a close, my travel bucket list has gotten considerably shorter. However, that doesn’t mean it’s gone away— and Zachary has added several experiences to the list. Here are 15 travel-related things I still definitely want to do (with Zachary, unless noted otherwise) before I kick the bucket!

1. Visit all 50 states. (29 down, 21 to go!)

2. Take a trip to Louisiana to visit the Tabasco farms.

Hopefully, this will be Zach and me next year!

3. Camp out on the salt flats of Utah again.

4. Host a Thanksgiving dinner for some travelers from another country.

5. Hike a section of the Ozark Trail. 

6. Visit Vancouver, Canada, with my sister.

7. Explore Wyoming’s national parks.

8. Finally visit Maine. (I’ve wanted to since I was a little kid!)

9. Take a road trip around New England in the autumn.

10. Go stargazing in a desert.

11. Take a day hike across Rhode Island.

12. Camp at the bottom of the Grand Canyon.

13. Go camping in Alaska.

14. Take a road trip through the Dakotas, Montana, and Idaho to Oregon.

15. Hike the Pacific Crest Trail in 2014!

~~~

Purple Starfish, Fairhaven, Washington

Non-Feel-Good and Not-So-Nice Words of Jesus

(This is your warning that I’m discussing the forbidden topic of religion. I’m even going to quote Bible verses. If you’re cool with that, keep reading. If religion offends you, you should probably keep reading anyway. But don’t say I didn’t warn you.)

After reading my very rushed blog yesterday, my husband pointed out that it was both vague and somewhat accusatory. I knew it was vague— to be honest, I dashed it off quickly because I had other work to get done— but I didn’t mean for it to be accusatory. So, since I have more time today, I wanted to expound a bit on my statement. 

I spent a few hours the other day reading through sections of three of the Gospels: Matthew, Luke, and John. As I read, I marveled that, if asked to describe Jesus, most people, Christian or not, would probably say that he was a good teacher who taught us to love each other, be nice, and do good things. This is because some of his most famous teachings follow these lines (all quotes are from the NIV translation):

“Do to others as you would have them do to you.” (Luke 6:31)

“Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.” (Luke 6:36)

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble of heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” (Matthew 11:28-30)

As a Christian, I believe everything that the Bible says is true. Therefore, when Jesus says that he is gentle and humble, I believe him. Most people would agree. But if you read his teachings long enough, you begin to notice that his overarching themes are much darker than happiness, niceness, love and peace. They are severe. They demand a giving up of life, not just a change of behavior. They are anything but feel-good.

Here are just a sampling of his teachings— and while many of them make more sense in context, most are just as difficult in context as they are out.

“Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. I have come to turn ‘a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law— a man’s enemies will be the members of his own household.’ Anyone who loves his father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves his son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and anyone who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me.” (Matthew 10:34-38)

“But woe to you who are rich, for you have already received your comfort. Woe to you who are well fed now, for you will go hungry. Woe to you who laugh now, for you will mourn and weep. Woe to you when all men speak well of you, for that is how their fathers treated the false prophets.” (Luke 6:24-26)

“But he who disowns me before men will be disowned before the angels of God. And everyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but anyone who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven.” (Luke 12:9-10)

“I came to bring fire on the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! But I have a baptism to undergo, and how distressed I am until it is completed! Do you think I came to bring peace on earth? No, I tell you, but division.” (Luke 12:49-51)

“If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters— yes, even his own life— he cannot be my disciple.” (Luke 14:26)

When Jesus interacts with people, he is often compassionate, and/or, more commonly, cryptic. Other times, though, his dialogue is dripping with sarcasm:

At that time some Pharisees came to Jesus and said to him, “Leave this place and go somewhere else. Herod wants to kill you.”

He replied, “Go tell that fox, ‘I will drive out demons and heal people today and tomorrow, and on the third day I will reach my goal.’ In any case, I must keep going today and tomorrow and the next day— for surely no prophet can die outside Jerusalem!” (Luke 13:31-33)

Sometimes, as when he healed ten lepers and only one came back to thank him, he sounds arrogant:

Jesus asked, “Were not all ten cleansed? Where are the other nine? Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?” (Luke 17:17)

Other times, he just chews people out:

He said to the crowd: “When you see a cloud rising in the west, immediately you say, ‘It’s going to rain,’ and it does. And when the south wind blows, you say, ‘It’s going to be hot,’ and it is. Hypocrites! You know how to interpret the appearance of the earth and the sky. How is it that you don’t know how to interpret this present time?” (Luke 12:54-56)

And he has no problem being impolitely blunt:

Jesus said to them, “If God were your Father, you would love me, for I came from God and now am here. I have not come on my own; but he sent me. Why is my language not clear to you? Because you are unable to hear what I say. You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desire.” (John 8:42-44)

In short, Jesus said a lot of nice things that can be written in fancy font on bookmarks to give us warm fuzzies— but the majority of his teaching isn’t like this, and many things he says are controversial or difficult enough to make anyone squirm. Cherry-picking the things we like and ignoring the things we don’t is an act of either disbelief or idolatry. It gives us an incomplete picture of who Jesus was, and what he was trying to tell us.

Jesus’ teachings do not exist to make his followers happy— they exist to make us more like God. That is not an easy or popular path. But it’s the only path he offers. Or, in his own words:

“If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it.” (Matthew 16:24-25)

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