I'm not saying much, but I need to Babble:

I haven't been the same since I got back. My heart aches. I ache. I feel immobilized and trapped. This isn't how I envisioned it.
When you ask me about my trip my insides get tight, I sigh, my head spins, faces flash through my mind, I re-enter that other world, and I am without words; I am straddling a line I cannot cut through. And I feel very alone.

Perhaps the biggest thing I got from Ghana:
I found something worthy of every single day of my life from here on out. Some people spend a lifetime looking for purpose and never find it. I've found something I would give my life for, and I can't do it.

I feel a slave to this world, this society, this government, these rules, this man-made stuff. Which is a contradiction itself: America is supposed to mean freedom, right? I have food, clean water, shelter, a warm bed. I have clothes and shoes and an education and all kinds of "opportunities" right outside my front door. I don't mean to sound ungrateful, excuse me if I do.. I'm really not, but bare with me here.
My priorities have just been jumbled, my desires are shifting, my perspective is being stretched to contain far more than America, and I am a bit confused, a bit messy, a bit.. well, not together. I would really like to be able to tell you about my trip, but even that word, "trip", makes me want to throw up.
THEY'RE PEOPLE! THEY HAVE SOULS! THEY FEEL! THEY THINK! THEY REASON! And my love for them is not something that is forced or out of pity or duty or self-righteousness. My heart is crushed, but I want you to know, they don't need our pity. They don't need our heroism. They need us to DO SOMETHING. All this money makes me sick. Every time I get a nice, neatly folded letter from Direct Loans I want to rip it up, fake my death, create a new identity, and flee the country with the money I do have rather than look at those gaping numbers and wither inside as I fight thoughts of just how many people that much money could feed, how many water filtration systems it could install, how much medicine it could buy. And I got a degree. A degree I could have easily gone without. It's sickening. It really is. I have so much stuff. I'm building myself a life that I don't need. If they were to come here I would be ashamed. Absolutely, utterly ashamed. I can just imagine their faces as they realize what we have and what it means as they try to process how it's possible that we live like this while they fight every day to live the way they do.

Alice. She's 53 years old but she looks at least 65. Late one night, after a day of carrying 10 gallon buckets of water on her head, killing and plucking chickens for dinner, scrubbing clothes clean with her hands, pounding yams, hauling bundles of wood and straw, she came and sat outside. She sunk into the bench, looked at the sky and said "I'm ready to go. I'm tired." She's 53 years old and ready for whatever awaits her on the otherside of this life. More than ready.

I sigh and mutter life, and I realize they're different worlds.. we can't feel bad for having what we have here, it's just different, that's all, la la la.. I've heard all that. I know that. Pain is pain. Hurt is hurt. Heartache is heartache. No matter what the circumstances or situations. I've always said that. And I realize our "problems" are very real as well. But.. I just.. I can't seem to get past this right now; this feeling of all the "unecessary", all the excess. It's not only enough, it's too much. We have too much. And it doesn't make sense that half the world hasn't even reached "enough".

Akwaaba

There's someone in Africa wearing my shoes.

I only wish I had brought 500,000 pair.


How to blog about two weeks that exceeded every expectation I had... changed parts of me I didn't know existed... left me feeling entirely void and unsure of what little I thought I did know.. left me full, but thousands of miles away from my own heart.

That's how I feel right now - stuck here in the spring mud, thousands of miles of salty sea-water away from my own heart, and no matter how badly I want to be there, to be unified with my full self, I cannot get there. It's a sickening feeling, one that's left me feeling quite immobilized and, well, stranded, really.
God bless America, and all that, but I can just feel Uncle Sam's fingertip pointed at me; He's laughing menacingly, for he knows that right now he holds some vital strings to this pupeteer life.


So where do I begin?

Do I start with the orphans? The hundreds of kids living on the streets in that one tiny town because the government shut down every single orphanage in the nation a year ago due to corruption in one orphanage, prohibiting them from re-opening until the situation is "cleaned up". How long will that take? A few more months? A few more years? Meanwhile they live in clusters and eat what little food they can find, hoping they can find some sort of shelter for the quickly-approaching rainy season.

Or the unending groups of women and children gathered on every side and bank of the local watering hole - a stagnant, mirky-green pond. Cattle wade in and out as hordes of people gather water for washing, cleaning, drinking.

No. No, no no. I'm going to start with something else. Because the truth is, as harsh as that other realm has been to them, they have something America has thrown away.. something America will most likely never get back.. something I would give just about anything to be a part of..

I'm going to start by saying this:

I've never before in my life seen such undeniably beautiful people. Striking, really. They have near to nothing and yet they stand so tall. I've never seen eyes so full, shoulders so strong, chins so proud. The women, I will never forget them. Babies bound to their backs, huge buckets and bowls balanced on their heads, they walk, some for miles, to allow themselves the barest of survival necessities.
We took a walk through the market our second full day in town. Women sat under cloth tents- yams, onions, fish, raw sea-salt spread all around them. When they saw us they would jump up, smile, wave, yell "Akwaaba!" (welcome) and point to our cameras excitedly. After taking their photos they would crowd around us, then laugh and slap their knees when they saw their images, patting us on the back, nodding approval and thanks. That's all it took.
We were the talk of the town.
The Americans who came to help. The Americans who came to build desks so the kids didn't have to sit on the floor. The Americans who came to install water filters. The Americans who went to the funeral celebration and blessed the sandals off a woman they didn't even know.

Pastor Peter (pronounced "pita", like the bread) said for them to see white people is like catching a glimpse of the hope and promise of heaven.

I have something else to say:

Dear Atebubu,
I would not wish America on any of you. You're far more beautiful than you realize. If I could give you all enough food and clean water I would do so without a second thought. But take you from your nation to mine, your culture to mine - never. We would ruin you.

I went to Ghana hoping to bring color from my world to yours. Well, friends, you colored me. And I get the feeling I'm the one who's never going to be the same.

(much, much more to come)

5!

i leave in 5 days. i leave in 5 days. i leave in 5 days!

not exactly sure what to follow that with. "i'm excited" sounds lame even though it's true. "i can't wait" is a given, except that I both can and will wait.

so I guess I'll just say this:

I fell running down a snowy/mostly ice hill yesterday. I won't tell the story of how - it's beyond mortifying (although rediculously funny as well). Needless to say, my back and tailbone haven't been the same since, nor have my head and my stomach. However, I do not regret the events that led to the fall. They all stem back to my current love for granola.
And that's all I have to say about THAT!

five days
five days
five days!

Granola Child

I've decided to start writing again. Really writing. Poetry, prose, songs. I bought a new book for Ghana. A nice green one full of empty pages. I will fill it with what I see, what I experience, what I feel. Not so different from all the other big books of empty pages lining my shelves, except that it is entirely different:
This one will belong to my world. This one I will share.

I'm going natural. Again, probably something that doesn't seem so strange or new, except that it really is very fresh inside me right now. I want to last. And I want to know that I'm taking care of this body as best I possibly can. I'm not going all freak-o "if it has an ingredient that starts with X in it I will not touch it", but over the last few years I've become increasingly more aware of what I'm putting in my body (or not putting in my body), how I'm treating my body, how I'm taking care of myself in general. Eating 6 apples a day doesn't make a girl healthy. It makes her sick. (warning: this may become a bit of an impassioned rant) It makes me sick to think of the number of times, number of days, weeks, months since I was in middle school that I've bought into the idea that abusing my body is going to somehow make me beautiful, desirable, better than I was before. If I skip a meal, drink a glass of milk and work out for an hour and a half I'll both feel AND look great! I've looked at too many women and wondered what it was like to have a body like THAT, skin like that, eyes like that. I've believed that if I weighed ten pounds less, wore a little more mascara, bought those new jeans I would feel so much better about myself.. or worse yet, that I would actually be better. College tested my love for myself, and to be honest, I'm not at all proud of what I discovered.
After coming to the end of myself time and again, I've finally begun to let go, and I'm done despising my own body, my own flaws and shortcomings and really, actually beautiful attributes that make me me. I mean that. Sitting here right now I can honestly say that I love my frizzy, unruly hair, my frustrating eyebrows, my puffy, sleepy eyes, my soft stomach, my wanna-be-runner legs, my size 10 feet. I love them I love them I love them! THIS IS ME!! And I want to be ME and be me healthy. I want my omega-3's, my fruits and vegetables, my protein (MY STEAKS!!), my oodles of oozing honey in my tea.
The world is beautiful. I've believed that for a long time now. Beauty is everywhere. But for some reason it's taken me a really long time to recognize that same beauty in myself. I'm not perfect, and I'm done wishing I was.
(weight: released)
So as for the natural thing
I just want to play in the dirt and find my potatoes there! I want to run through the woods and find my blackberries there! I want to float down the river and wash my hair with eco-friendly shampoo there! I want to lather on my sunscreen and let my freckles emerge under the unfathomably hot sun! I want to make my own hummus, make my own granola (it's baking right now) and sit under the stars sipping my handmade mug of green tea.. with oodles of honey =)

This summer has the potential to be far better than I first imagined.
The more I get to know Him the more freedom I find, the more "free-spirited" you call me, the more wild my heart grows, the more I long for sunshine and rivers and places with mossy hollows.
*The more I get to know You the more free I AM.
And the more I long for an even greater release of the fullness of that freedom*

oh, and another new development:
spending large sums of money makes me literally sick to my stomach.
I think I'm ready for Africa.

Stay.

I made a decision today. It came with a great struggle and even now, now that I've both made and solidified the decision, I don't feel the same release and ease that final decisions usually leave me with.
After Ghana I'm giving the next 6 months of my life to Beaver Falls, NY. I will be here, and not just be here, but really, truly be here. All of me. Knowing what I know now, that leaves me unsettled inside, on-edge, anxious. I am full of anticipation, full of questions, and I wonder.. I wonder what He will do, what He will require of me, what He will pull out of me and stir inside of me, how He will break me, how He will stretch me, what His heart for this place will feel like resting inside of mine. I wonder what these winds will smell like, what this air will do to my skin- how it will weather me, season me. I wonder how my understanding of Love will change, how my perception of God will expand, grow, re-shape; what particular movements will grip my heart and stir my soul. I wonder how His Spirit will penetrate my spirit here; how the atmosphere will change me. I wonder who I'll be in September.. and how that person will come to be.
I expect to be challenged and I expect to grow. I refuse to remain the same.
So here I am, God. I'm taking a chance. I'm letting go of what I want for right now. Here are my hands, here is my heart, here I am. It's not much, but I'm trusting it's enough for You.. and all I really want is to be something to You..

"wherever you are, be all there;
live to the hilt every situation you believe to be the will of God."
-jim elliot.

here we go.

fresh paint.

I figured I should write a little something since I haven't in a while..

Life. This life. I am full and empty at the same painstakingly slow-but-ceaseless tick of that old wooden clock down the hall. It keeps going, and I keep going. But it never has to think the way I do.

23 days 'til Ghana. I am excited and scared beyond words. Something inside of me knows there's a part of me waiting for me over there, and that alone is enough to draw me to another nation, regardless of finances or logic. It's also the very thing that makes me hesitate.
The only expectation I am packing into my fancy, super-sized, synthetic suitcase is the expectation for change. We will make changes, and we will be changed. period. I cannot anticipate how, nor can I presume in what ways that will play into the rest of my life. I don't want to know what's there before I get there. I don't want to go into this thinking that it's going to be so hard to wittness, so hard to experience, or so hard to return from. I want to go and leave every ounce of me that I possibly can there. I want to give my heart, my hands, my labor for those people, whoever they might be. I want to fall in love, pour out love, and come back with empty suitcases and nothing left to give.

In regards to my "future"-

I am restless. My stomach is in flutters. My sleep is solid; I'm up by 7:30 when I sleep in and I'm exhausted at the end of each day. I'm resisting. I'm afraid.

He's holding out His hand. In His palm rests His heart.. for this place, for this people. And I can't bring myself to say 'yes'.

Somehow all of this is going to add up to something He's been waiting to walk me into. Right now I don't see it becoming the masterpiece I've dreamed of, but the truth is I would rather crawl through His 'for right now' than run through my own 'what i've always dreamed of'. I really mean that. Something is happening. This is going to break me. It's going to go against my own immediate desires, but it's going to be exactly what I need for right now. I really believe that.

The waiting is hard. I want to run, hard, and I want to do it now. He keeps giving me tastes and pieces, little parts that sustain me for awhile and keep me hoping and believing. Like Ghana, what a gift.. a so-very strategic gift, on His part.

oh, and I've been doing lots of painting. painting walls. There's something oddly satisfying about it for me. Something about seeing the change... about slapping the spackle into the gouges and crevices, sanding it down, painting over it and seeing the transformation. I stare at freshly painted walls far too long..

let's go creek-stomping*

Life is never what I expect, never what I plan for, never what I anticipate or hope for. Sometimes it's more, sometimes it's less, but always it is. It just is, and I need to just let go and let it be.

I want to escape the world of money and power that builds injustice and distrust. I can't, which means I need to find life beyond those things if I am to ever be alive, if I am to ever be entirely free.

It's one thing to feel free inside and another to walk through the pressures of life in that same freedom. Sometimes when I sit beside a campfire, pine needles and dirt sticking to my wet feet after a recent creek-stomp , flames burning my eyelids, light laughter meeting my ears as family and friends chat easily, wind-chimes bumping one another in the breeze, I forget about my bank account, forget about my body, forget about my education, forget about the past, forget about the future, and I am free, both inside and out.

or
I dream of my lilly pad,
the one with enough room for me
and You; where nothing dulls my senses or keeps my spirit from moving the way it was meant to..

"where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom" 2 cor. 3:17

Thank you, public health =)

one of the most colorful, brilliant people i know is in manila (philipines) right. now. for two MONTHS! it makes me want to go run around with cameras to our faces, snapping shots of stray dogs and fruit trees and little boys in rags. if i was there, of course.

i got five shots today, three in my left arm, two in my right. let's just say i won't be praising the lord with quite the same enthusiasm as usual for the next couple days haha!

yellow fever- $95
hep. A- $30
polio- $35
flu- $30
typhoid- $65

malaria pills- $175

(my goodness, saving the world is expensive!)

but i believe..
ooo goodness, i believe!

**thousands of other thoughts which i will spare you all**

Your love makes it worth it all*

The land of Remember When
reminds me of what used to be.

midnight meanderings on the railroad tracks,
sunrises after sleepless, heart-felt nights,
cold noses beneath clear, star-speckled skies,
campfires on couches in the snow,

that pool ball in the wall.

her mother's calling hours, his funeral, his funeral, his funeral.

living the line between heaven
and hell. begging, pleading for a thinner veil,
an unleashing, a drenching..

with dozens and dozens
of naive, ignorant, passionate,
over-zealous, hungry kids
just like me.

kids who said they would do anything.
kids who said they would go anywhere.
kids who said this was it, this was forever.

I look around now, here in the land of Remember When, and very little is as it once was. I don't understand, save this one thing:

This life is a war.

(There are no short-cuts.There are no easy-way-outs.We fight. Every single one of us, every single day. As for why some make it and some don't, I've been at a loss. We grew up in the same thing, the same rediculous move of God that we all, all 80.. 90 of us, took for granted.)

I rarely have visions, but the other night God gave me a look inside my heart. It was so real that I clutched my chest almost instantly, as if to somehow protect or preserve what was burning inside.. there were coals.. bright, bright, burning coals. Just coals. The kind that are almost impossible to extinguish. At first I was disappointed - no flames. No big bon-fire. No beautiful little teepee with the perfect number of pine-cones and the perfect amount of paper and pine needles.

Coals.

[but] anything can produce a flame. [but] flames die.

Coals take time. They take tending. The coals aren't nearly as exciting as the flames; they aren't big nor do they produce much of a sense of exhileration. They might not draw the same crowd, but they last.

It's a new season, and when all the excitement and movement and flame dies down, how long will your coals last? how is the fire, really? It's one thing to be on fire, it's a whole other thing to burn forever.

I still don't understand.
I don't understand how one can say "nevermind" to something so life-changing, so real, so inside of us, so consuming, so wonderful, so undeserving, but I do understand that while the last three and a half years all but completely destroyed me, they were also the best years of my life thus far, and hard as they were, I would live them all over again to know what I know now: the perfectly tender love, the constantly attentive eyes of a Father who has never once left me hanging, will never leave me to wipe my own tears or fight my demons alone, and knows exactly what to do with this wrecked, ruined, fragile life. That changes everything; I'll never be the same.

The dirt between my toes.

I'm going to Ghana (!!) for two weeks in March. We're building a school...working with kids..
for a long time now I've wanted more. I've been restless, anxious, dissatisfied, hungry for the rawness of realities I've caught glimpses of but never walked in myself.

I want the dirt between my toes and those big dark eyes staring into my own, breaking my ignorance, giving names and faces and places to my dreams.. something they've never had before.

Three weeks ago I graduated from college, something I never saw happening. Not because I didn't believe I could, I never doubted that I would, but college seemed like it, over time it began to seem like the thing I would do. The people, the place- it was all that mattered while I was there. When I found out I could graduate early my heart sped up and one by one my dreams began to resurface.. that moment of realization was a gulp of air I didn't realize I wasn't taking until I took it.

I spent a half hour in the hot tub staring up into the sky, into the darkness, and I made a declaration:

My God is the God of more than enough. More than enough Love, more than enough hope, more than enough inspiration, more than enough reason, more than enough comraderie, more than enough justice, more than enough courage, more than enough mercy, more than enough compassion, more than enough grace, more than enough encouragement, more than enough strength, more than enough joy. With my God, I will lack nothing; I will never be alone. I will never have insufficient supply. Never. Not if He's my everything. Not if He's holding me, carrying me, leading me, directing me, dreaming for me, living through me.

I'll claim that. Yeah, I'll take that.

God,
You are more than enough. You're my more than enough.

If I go to Global Awakening, or if I don't. If I sit before Him, waiting quietly for the sounds of heaven to reverberate deep within my Spirit, that I might play His heart back to Him, or if I don't. If I rub the earth of many nations between my fingers, or if I don't. If I hold many children, rocking back and forth, back and forth on the floor, or if I don't. If I see nations rise or nations fall. If I pour my life into many or into few. If I eat steak or if I eat leaves. If I see people fight or shrink back. If I write many verses or no verses. If I walk or if I run. If I am beautiful or if I am waning...
Dearly Beloved of my soul, You are more than enough.

And for me, that's enough.

"And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that in all things, at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work." -2 corinthians 9:8