It's been awhile since I've updated this here lovely little place for my thoughts and life-happenings, so here I am sitting in an absolutely beautiful loaned house in Ave Maria, Florida thinking I just might take a few minutes here to fill those faithful followers in on how I am and where I am on this multidimensional journey...
The trip has been incredible, it really has.. I am constantly amazed at the seemingly endless generosity continually bestowed upon us, sometimes from total strangers. I've seen and experienced an element of trust between people that I wasn't expecting to recognize so clearly. People who don't have any idea who we really are have let us into their home to spend a night, leaving in the morning before we even wake up. That's some serious trust..
We've met all kinds of people.. people, people, people.. they intrigue me so! I could sit and listen to a person all day long, slowly sorting through what they're saying as I figure out what they actually mean.. the words in between the actual words.. I love watching the way their eyes move, the way their bodies speak, the way they interact with the people they know and love and the ones they don't. Last night I went to a pub with a woman in Ave I just met the other day. She's in her 60s, started her own business 25 years ago and went from having close to nothing to this place of excess in the span of those years. Such insight and understanding she has! We sat for two hours over dinner and she talked and talked and when she appologized at the end of the night for talking my ear off I could honestly say "Oh my goodness, no! I enjoyed it so much!" For me, this is life.. sharing time with total strangers until they're no longer strangers; giving parts of me away and taking parts of other people with me when I throw my clothes in the back of my car, pull out my atlas, and choose a direction..
Since we left I've had moments when I feel I'm gasping for air, wondering how I can be in this when there's so much "unknown" in my life. This trip no longer has a 3 month limit, which is incredibly exciting, wonderfully overwhelming, and.. scary. The days are so beautiful right now. I feel I could wander like this for a very long time, which scares me a little as well. But then there are the times when I sink into this and I know that this is for right now and for right now, it's not only okay, it's good. I've felt guilty knowing that just about everyone else I know is either working or in school while I'm out here doing this "crazy" (although it's really not so crazy now that I'm in it..) thing that everyone wishes they could do but "can't". There are times when I miss being a part of a solid group, be it in church or coaching or family or a cluster of close friends. But all these moments are fleeting.. I'm so content being in this right now. There's nothing else I could imagine doing right now. As much as I want to do this, I also need to do this. I'm experiencing my country, and oh my, it's beauty is unspeakable.. I'm only in Florida and already I sense myself falling in love *!!* with this country.. could it be that this is happening already? I wasn't sure it would happen at all, much less 4 weeks in.. but it is. The people, the places, the way it accepts me and what it's offering me.. it's more wonderful than I could have expected.
The mountains pull me in, healing me, rejuvinating me, threatening to never let me out- something I think I might one day be okay with. [Kendra the Mountain Girl..]
The ocean catches, holds, and releases a part of me the rivers and streams never have. Every time I see it is as though I'm seeing it for the first time.. but the water tastes so sweet and familiar every time.
But one thing I miss that I wasn't expecting at all:
I miss leading worship. I can't even believe it myself. The more I explore this the more convinced I am that it's something I'm supposed to be doing at this point in my life. God's whispering some things to me regarding this which I will reveal as they formulate a bit more..
I wish I could load a piano on top of the suburu.. there are times my desire feels strong enough to call a need.
Oh, beautiful life..*
December 5, 2009
November 18, 2009
Sometimes life just makes me laugh, HAH!
Sometimes it's all you can do. :)
After an ever-so-minor mishap we will be back on the road tomorrow.
We WILL
I repeat:
WE WILL!!!!
make it to california.
:D
Dear Grace-Mobile,
I really don't think I'll ever stop loving you.. which makes absolutely no sense to me.
xo
Sometimes it's all you can do. :)
After an ever-so-minor mishap we will be back on the road tomorrow.
We WILL
I repeat:
WE WILL!!!!
make it to california.
:D
Dear Grace-Mobile,
I really don't think I'll ever stop loving you.. which makes absolutely no sense to me.
xo
November 17, 2009
Light*
There's nothing else I can imagine doing right now. After three nights being unable to snag more than a few hours of solid rest, I've finally settled into this. The excitement was almost unbearable at first. I feared this might never become normal, that I would be a constant case of restless excitement jitters. Eight days later, it's normal. :)
Things have gone wrong, the journey hasn't been flawless, but this is life! This journey was never meant to be an escape from the day-to-day or a time-out from myself and the world but rather an intentional pursuit of all of these things that make up life, just in different places and around different people. My heart is consistent, but my eyes are seeing: the places, the people. It's been 8 days, but I'm being faithfully filled.
We attended a Hindu celebration of Light's triumph over Darkness. It was absolutely beautiful and for the first time in my life I saw something I've been wondering about and hoping to discover for many years now. When I think about my relationship with God, the thing that holds me to Him is the LIFE I've found in Him, the honest, deep, intimate connection I have with Him that reminds me every single day just how present He is and how committed He is to me. I've often looked at other religions and wondered what it is that holds them together.. what it is that keeps them so committed. I've believed there must be something real in them... at least a little bit of truth hidden somewhere within them. And I've always wanted to find someone from another religion as passionate about their faith as I am about mine. I saw something Saturday night that brought me so much joy. At this Hindu celebration I saw for the first time a people who were connecting intimately with something Divine. This isn't to say that their religion is right, but it's not difficult at all for me to believe now that there's something in this Hindu faith is holy and good. Do they have the whole Truth? No, I don't believe they do. But even now I can picture this one man's face, the way he swayed, the way he disconnected from what was happening around him in order to connect with something ethereal.. I recognized in him something very similar to what I experience when I allow Jesus to sweep me away. This recognition doesn't alter, challenge, or change my faith in Jesus one bit, but rather gives me hope that perhaps parts of the world aren't as far from Him as I once believed they were. Perhaps they're closer than we think, they're just calling it something else right now. That's a huge thing for me to realize. As a Christian, I don't need to look at these other religions and see evil. It's like Keturah said, how can something that believes in and produces so much good in people be altogether evil? Just because it's not THE truth doesn't make it altogether bad. Am I promoting the Hindu faith? No, I'm not.. I hope this can be read and understand as I've experienced it.. simply as a bit of hope that people of other faith's do have a part of something real.. and that one day when they taste of the fullness of Christ, they might be able to recognize the beauty of the culmination of the many elements of Truth in this one man.
Things have gone wrong, the journey hasn't been flawless, but this is life! This journey was never meant to be an escape from the day-to-day or a time-out from myself and the world but rather an intentional pursuit of all of these things that make up life, just in different places and around different people. My heart is consistent, but my eyes are seeing: the places, the people. It's been 8 days, but I'm being faithfully filled.
We attended a Hindu celebration of Light's triumph over Darkness. It was absolutely beautiful and for the first time in my life I saw something I've been wondering about and hoping to discover for many years now. When I think about my relationship with God, the thing that holds me to Him is the LIFE I've found in Him, the honest, deep, intimate connection I have with Him that reminds me every single day just how present He is and how committed He is to me. I've often looked at other religions and wondered what it is that holds them together.. what it is that keeps them so committed. I've believed there must be something real in them... at least a little bit of truth hidden somewhere within them. And I've always wanted to find someone from another religion as passionate about their faith as I am about mine. I saw something Saturday night that brought me so much joy. At this Hindu celebration I saw for the first time a people who were connecting intimately with something Divine. This isn't to say that their religion is right, but it's not difficult at all for me to believe now that there's something in this Hindu faith is holy and good. Do they have the whole Truth? No, I don't believe they do. But even now I can picture this one man's face, the way he swayed, the way he disconnected from what was happening around him in order to connect with something ethereal.. I recognized in him something very similar to what I experience when I allow Jesus to sweep me away. This recognition doesn't alter, challenge, or change my faith in Jesus one bit, but rather gives me hope that perhaps parts of the world aren't as far from Him as I once believed they were. Perhaps they're closer than we think, they're just calling it something else right now. That's a huge thing for me to realize. As a Christian, I don't need to look at these other religions and see evil. It's like Keturah said, how can something that believes in and produces so much good in people be altogether evil? Just because it's not THE truth doesn't make it altogether bad. Am I promoting the Hindu faith? No, I'm not.. I hope this can be read and understand as I've experienced it.. simply as a bit of hope that people of other faith's do have a part of something real.. and that one day when they taste of the fullness of Christ, they might be able to recognize the beauty of the culmination of the many elements of Truth in this one man.
November 14, 2009
Day 6 (Princeton, NJ)
I thought once I started this trip I would transfer the majority of my blogging over to our joint blog (posted below) but alas, I will not. I will be writing on the other blog too, but this one still will hold the majority of the deep things God is doing in me. The other will tell of where we've been and what we've been doing in the natural. There will be some alley-ways to my heart, but most of those will be right here.
So Where to Begin..
I knew this trip was going to be both intense and wonderful, I just didn't know how extreme those two experiences would be when they collided with one other. It is intense. And it is wonderful. There have been moments when I've caught myself asking if I can handle this for three months and moments when I've lost all sense of time and place and been so thoroughly content.
It's been a long time since I haven't been in a place of leadership/serving. I didn't expect to notice the absence of that so much after only 6 days. Suddenly I can really sense where I am in the Spirit, which is something I've been struggling with and fighting through since last December. It's been so difficult for me to figure out where I really am... where my heart is.. where God's heart for me is.. and now I sense I'm in a position where I might be able to receive from Him whatever it is He so desires for me to take away. It's so strange for me to be responsible for no one but myself. It's so unusual.. so odd for me to be able to place myself in a situation and think only of how this particular thing is impacting me, affecting me. It's going to take some getting used to. Without realizing it I became so used to approaching every situation and every person with a "what might they need that I will be able to offer" mentality. I almost think my life became a search for how I could help and support every one around me, no matter what kind of hit my own life would take because of that. (note: i realize this is not a bad thing, but right now in order to get out of this experience everything i need to, i need to lay this mentality to rest for a while).
SO, I'll be writing in here as I open myself up to experiencing life a little differently. Already my eyes have been opened and little areas within my soul have been awakened. In all honesty, my spirit is hungry. Really, really hungry. But I know God looks upon me, I know He sees my earnest hunger, and I know even now He's reaching into the manna of Heaven, fully intending to satisfy this aching spirit.
I intend to receive.
So Where to Begin..
I knew this trip was going to be both intense and wonderful, I just didn't know how extreme those two experiences would be when they collided with one other. It is intense. And it is wonderful. There have been moments when I've caught myself asking if I can handle this for three months and moments when I've lost all sense of time and place and been so thoroughly content.
It's been a long time since I haven't been in a place of leadership/serving. I didn't expect to notice the absence of that so much after only 6 days. Suddenly I can really sense where I am in the Spirit, which is something I've been struggling with and fighting through since last December. It's been so difficult for me to figure out where I really am... where my heart is.. where God's heart for me is.. and now I sense I'm in a position where I might be able to receive from Him whatever it is He so desires for me to take away. It's so strange for me to be responsible for no one but myself. It's so unusual.. so odd for me to be able to place myself in a situation and think only of how this particular thing is impacting me, affecting me. It's going to take some getting used to. Without realizing it I became so used to approaching every situation and every person with a "what might they need that I will be able to offer" mentality. I almost think my life became a search for how I could help and support every one around me, no matter what kind of hit my own life would take because of that. (note: i realize this is not a bad thing, but right now in order to get out of this experience everything i need to, i need to lay this mentality to rest for a while).
SO, I'll be writing in here as I open myself up to experiencing life a little differently. Already my eyes have been opened and little areas within my soul have been awakened. In all honesty, my spirit is hungry. Really, really hungry. But I know God looks upon me, I know He sees my earnest hunger, and I know even now He's reaching into the manna of Heaven, fully intending to satisfy this aching spirit.
I intend to receive.
November 5, 2009
October 26, 2009
A Burst of Blue.
Two weeks from today I will be waving farewell to my hometown as I begin my three month journey around/across the US! It may be the craziest thing I've ever done, but I have a feeling it also just might be the healthiest.
I am drawn to the extreme. I am compelled by the rediculous. I get jittery when I think about possibilities, potentials. Hearing about someone else's experience makes me ache.. I want to experience it myself. I know enough now to know that unless I do, I really cannot claim to know anything at all about whatever it might be. Reading books is good, but they only make me want to experience what I've just read on my own. Seeing photographs is good, but they make my eyes and my insides itch to be in it myself. I've been called curious, which is probably true. But my drive really doesn't come from curiosity or a need to be in the know. What I need is to understand. This need for experience undoubtedly stems from the desire to live an authentic life. Forming opinions, desires, dreams even from someone else's experiences lacks a degree of authenticity I don't want to live without. How can I speak of someone as a statistic, of a country as a shape on a map, of a people group as a stereotype or a study?
This is the very reason I am so compelled to get to know my God ever-increasingly more. I'm not satisfied hearing other people's stories of His goodness, His faithfulness, His kindness, His love. Sure they inspire, but I need to experience these attributes for myself. If I don't, I really have no idea who He is.
All of this to say I'm taking this trip for many reasons, but the greatest of the many is that I might encounter: myself, my country, my fellow Americans, and my God. To zip from coast to coast in two weeks would entirely defeat the purpose of this trip. I must go slow. I must take the time to absorb and reflect upon every conversation, observation and experience until each one has settled deep inside of me. I must take pieces of America with me as I go, and I must find a way to leave pieces of myself in the form of blessings along the way. I need to be more in-tune with myself, with the air, with the sounds, with the Spirit, with my God. Separated from any "group", any responsibility, any obligation, any specific place, what will my heart feel? What will I long for? Where will the winds of the Spirit blow me? And how will I respond? I need to find this out.. because when I'm home I long for home, when I'm in Africa I long for Africa, when I'm at Brockport, I long for Brockport. (etc. etc.)
But I have a feeling God has something to say to me that boundaries have rendered me unable to hear.
---
I think part of what's making me so ready right now is the realization that I might not be ready. There is no limit to what these months could bring. Nothing would surprise me. But I'm ready to be caught off-guard, to be wow-ed, to be disappointed, to "not be ready". I've realized sometimes it's impossible to be ready, and sometimes it's okay not to be ready.
Ready or not,
two weeks from today I'm off!
I am drawn to the extreme. I am compelled by the rediculous. I get jittery when I think about possibilities, potentials. Hearing about someone else's experience makes me ache.. I want to experience it myself. I know enough now to know that unless I do, I really cannot claim to know anything at all about whatever it might be. Reading books is good, but they only make me want to experience what I've just read on my own. Seeing photographs is good, but they make my eyes and my insides itch to be in it myself. I've been called curious, which is probably true. But my drive really doesn't come from curiosity or a need to be in the know. What I need is to understand. This need for experience undoubtedly stems from the desire to live an authentic life. Forming opinions, desires, dreams even from someone else's experiences lacks a degree of authenticity I don't want to live without. How can I speak of someone as a statistic, of a country as a shape on a map, of a people group as a stereotype or a study?
This is the very reason I am so compelled to get to know my God ever-increasingly more. I'm not satisfied hearing other people's stories of His goodness, His faithfulness, His kindness, His love. Sure they inspire, but I need to experience these attributes for myself. If I don't, I really have no idea who He is.
All of this to say I'm taking this trip for many reasons, but the greatest of the many is that I might encounter: myself, my country, my fellow Americans, and my God. To zip from coast to coast in two weeks would entirely defeat the purpose of this trip. I must go slow. I must take the time to absorb and reflect upon every conversation, observation and experience until each one has settled deep inside of me. I must take pieces of America with me as I go, and I must find a way to leave pieces of myself in the form of blessings along the way. I need to be more in-tune with myself, with the air, with the sounds, with the Spirit, with my God. Separated from any "group", any responsibility, any obligation, any specific place, what will my heart feel? What will I long for? Where will the winds of the Spirit blow me? And how will I respond? I need to find this out.. because when I'm home I long for home, when I'm in Africa I long for Africa, when I'm at Brockport, I long for Brockport. (etc. etc.)
But I have a feeling God has something to say to me that boundaries have rendered me unable to hear.
---
I think part of what's making me so ready right now is the realization that I might not be ready. There is no limit to what these months could bring. Nothing would surprise me. But I'm ready to be caught off-guard, to be wow-ed, to be disappointed, to "not be ready". I've realized sometimes it's impossible to be ready, and sometimes it's okay not to be ready.
Ready or not,
two weeks from today I'm off!
October 21, 2009
Sweet Wind*
The last three days have led me to a place more real than the most real places I had known before. Nothing "happened", but oh.. something is happening.. something that's been a long time in coming, something I've been smelling and sensing and longing for but refusing to let in, something I've known existed but haven't been able to relax enough to allow my inner-being to access and explore.
My insides feel soft, but it's different than the soft of the past. I feel soft as in surrendered, soft as in helpless, which has led to honesty, soft as in broken to the point of wholeness. I have been awakened to a deeper revelation of truth.
And all I want is to sit here with my Maker and absorb it.. more and more and more.. because I know there's so much more.
I'm reaching for wholeheartedness. I think that's what I've been doing all along, only I've grown confused by the many pulls on my heart that have taken me in a dozen different directions, asking me for my entire life. There are so many things I would give my life for. So many people and so many places that deserve every ounce my being, and more. But my God.. all He really wants is my whole heart. And He wants it for Himself. If I could accomplish one thing in this life it would be this: to follow hard after the very heartbeat of Jesus Christ Himself.. with abandonment.. with my whole heart; to feel His heart beat every day.
Me, with my ear pressed to His chest.
Me, with my small arms wrapped about His neck.
I have a new respect for His presence and His Spirit; a new sense of Holiness and what it means to walk into a place where He rests. His Beauty, His Goodness, His Righteousness, His Grace, His love - it's Holy, as I am not. But He makes me Beautiful, He makes me Good, He makes me Righteous, He calls me Beloved..
This Holiness that so far outweighs my filth takes all words from my tongue. I have nothing left to say, only to ask Him to feel this heart.. feel this heart as it feels the weight of Your Glory, for I am so small here with You and yet I feel a queen in the most desirable, majestic Kingdom.
My King, My King..
And the world rushes on, but finally, finally I can stand and say No World, No Pressure, you can't have me. Because I'm going somewhere amazing with the Creator of the Universe. He's captaining a ship that's about to brave some crazy waters, and I'm on board. I'm looking out at the sea, taking in the danger, the excitement, the beauty, the vastness, the mystery, the possibility, and all I feel is peace and assurance. He has me, hah!
He Has Me.
My insides feel soft, but it's different than the soft of the past. I feel soft as in surrendered, soft as in helpless, which has led to honesty, soft as in broken to the point of wholeness. I have been awakened to a deeper revelation of truth.
And all I want is to sit here with my Maker and absorb it.. more and more and more.. because I know there's so much more.
I'm reaching for wholeheartedness. I think that's what I've been doing all along, only I've grown confused by the many pulls on my heart that have taken me in a dozen different directions, asking me for my entire life. There are so many things I would give my life for. So many people and so many places that deserve every ounce my being, and more. But my God.. all He really wants is my whole heart. And He wants it for Himself. If I could accomplish one thing in this life it would be this: to follow hard after the very heartbeat of Jesus Christ Himself.. with abandonment.. with my whole heart; to feel His heart beat every day.
Me, with my ear pressed to His chest.
Me, with my small arms wrapped about His neck.
I have a new respect for His presence and His Spirit; a new sense of Holiness and what it means to walk into a place where He rests. His Beauty, His Goodness, His Righteousness, His Grace, His love - it's Holy, as I am not. But He makes me Beautiful, He makes me Good, He makes me Righteous, He calls me Beloved..
This Holiness that so far outweighs my filth takes all words from my tongue. I have nothing left to say, only to ask Him to feel this heart.. feel this heart as it feels the weight of Your Glory, for I am so small here with You and yet I feel a queen in the most desirable, majestic Kingdom.
My King, My King..
And the world rushes on, but finally, finally I can stand and say No World, No Pressure, you can't have me. Because I'm going somewhere amazing with the Creator of the Universe. He's captaining a ship that's about to brave some crazy waters, and I'm on board. I'm looking out at the sea, taking in the danger, the excitement, the beauty, the vastness, the mystery, the possibility, and all I feel is peace and assurance. He has me, hah!
He Has Me.
October 15, 2009
What I Find Satisfying
Teaching 12 year-olds how to work hard [and consequently watching them slowly but surely catch The Running Bug].
Untying a 17lb. bag of oats to begin work on a monster batch of granola [and sampling said granola at each of the four stages of its creation].
Sitting cross-legged on the couch with a hot cup of tea writing a letter to a friend I have not seen in months [and expressing myself so honestly that I sign the letter having felt as though they were right there with me the entire time].
Running 12 miles on a crisp autumn day [and feeling as though I could have run more].
Walking into a dark church, fumbling around to the sound booth, turning on the system, removing my shoes, and playing the piano [under the dimmest of lights, with only the dainty hum of electronics].
Hiking through trees [under, over, around], trees, and more trees, chasing the sound of rushing water [when I arrive, I will sit very still and refuse to move until I have lost all sense of time].
When you're hurting, I want to help you.
When days are dull, I want to dance until we've touched new life.
And one day after day after day I will feel every muscle relax as I slide beneath layers of patchwork quilts after a physically, emotionally, spiritually exhausting day [and know that this, THIS! is life].
Untying a 17lb. bag of oats to begin work on a monster batch of granola [and sampling said granola at each of the four stages of its creation].
Sitting cross-legged on the couch with a hot cup of tea writing a letter to a friend I have not seen in months [and expressing myself so honestly that I sign the letter having felt as though they were right there with me the entire time].
Running 12 miles on a crisp autumn day [and feeling as though I could have run more].
Walking into a dark church, fumbling around to the sound booth, turning on the system, removing my shoes, and playing the piano [under the dimmest of lights, with only the dainty hum of electronics].
Hiking through trees [under, over, around], trees, and more trees, chasing the sound of rushing water [when I arrive, I will sit very still and refuse to move until I have lost all sense of time].
When you're hurting, I want to help you.
When days are dull, I want to dance until we've touched new life.
And one day after day after day I will feel every muscle relax as I slide beneath layers of patchwork quilts after a physically, emotionally, spiritually exhausting day [and know that this, THIS! is life].
September 30, 2009
Goodbye September!
Today America paid me .55/mile and $12.25/hour to drive 220 miles (6 hours) through the heart of the Adirondack park. Needless to say, it was absolutely beautiful. The Grace Mobile only had one minor malfunction. So minor, in fact, that I don't have any idea what went wrong. She decided to reverse when trying to pull out of a parking spot rather than "Drive" as I so commanded her. After a short, sweet pep-talk she was back to her normal rumbling self. If that's the worst she does, we'll be just fine.
I have increasing confidence in three things after todays rendezvous:
Grace just might be the ship after all.
I may not go entirely nuts sitting still in cramped quarters for long trecks across states.. as long as there's something refreshing to look at.
Right turn or wrong turn, I'm going to make it.
p.s. it snowed today in old forge. Large Fluffy Flakes Laughed at me for ten minutes straight.
I daresay, it's finally starting to seem like the right season.
I have increasing confidence in three things after todays rendezvous:
Grace just might be the ship after all.
I may not go entirely nuts sitting still in cramped quarters for long trecks across states.. as long as there's something refreshing to look at.
Right turn or wrong turn, I'm going to make it.
p.s. it snowed today in old forge. Large Fluffy Flakes Laughed at me for ten minutes straight.
I daresay, it's finally starting to seem like the right season.
September 28, 2009
As Of Today:
My AmeriCorps NCCC application's status has upgraded to "Under Review". (Eight weeks ago I gave up all hope of ever hearing back from them.) Doesn't this just add a little color to the spectrum of life!
I am a registered Couch Surfer. Try not to be too jealous.
I feel organized? [strange.]
There is a deep inner peace. Because once again I thought I could plan something on my own only to find that, believe it or not, I could not. Life seldom goes as planned.
I am a registered Couch Surfer. Try not to be too jealous.
I feel organized? [strange.]
There is a deep inner peace. Because once again I thought I could plan something on my own only to find that, believe it or not, I could not. Life seldom goes as planned.
September 27, 2009
September 25, 2009
My hands are cold.
I feel like I missed a season somewhere. Really, I have no desire to be melodramatic about this or make it into some deep metaphorical reflection of time spent and time lost and la la la, which is why I've been hesitant to allow myself to acknowledge this "feeling", but it keeps popping up in my thoughts. When I see the changing leaves and feel the burning fall air I am perplexed. Even as I stare at the colorful trees I am generally so eager to welcome and bundle up in the fantastic layers I anticipate pulling out every year, I feel so thrown off; I missed a season somewhere.
Maybe it has something to do with the shortage of hot summer days, or the fact that I no longer have the academic year with which to map out my months, or the fact that my day-to-day life has been all over the map (literally) these past nine months. Like I said, the thought of making this any deeper than it needs to be actually makes me feel a little sick.. but even metaphorically, have I missed a season?? Did I miss something I was supposed to do? Learn? Experience? Did I miss some great moment that was supposed to be a part of my life?
I missed something. Not because I was too busy, but because I was unaware. That's a really nauseating feeling.
Maybe it has something to do with the shortage of hot summer days, or the fact that I no longer have the academic year with which to map out my months, or the fact that my day-to-day life has been all over the map (literally) these past nine months. Like I said, the thought of making this any deeper than it needs to be actually makes me feel a little sick.. but even metaphorically, have I missed a season?? Did I miss something I was supposed to do? Learn? Experience? Did I miss some great moment that was supposed to be a part of my life?
I missed something. Not because I was too busy, but because I was unaware. That's a really nauseating feeling.
September 24, 2009
These Three Things
Africa.
America.
Worship.
I will expound upon them later. For now, I just had to write them down.
America.
Worship.
I will expound upon them later. For now, I just had to write them down.
September 20, 2009
soon
I don't believe I've ever felt so out of control yet so controlled.
The ship sails in 40 days! What the "ship" will look like and where she will be going are yet to be determined. But I've discovered something wonderful, and that is that I must go. The thought of driving through my country (my country..) with no place to be and no time to have to be anywhere.. the thought of paying my bills three months in advance, grabbing my passport (nothing is out of the question for this one) from the safe, filling my duffel bags with the fewest of items I might need for the journey (a girl needs a good sweater, some trustworthy spandex pants and alpaca mittens, for sure), stocking the ship (oh, I can't wait to name her!) with bulgur, wheat berries, beans, granola..
We will have a tent. We will have couchsurfing.com. We will have our books of empty pages. We will have Spanish tutorials and tapes. We will have maps (sorry GPS, you didn't win the battle for this heart). We will have hiking shoes, a video camera, sleeping bags, flashlights, and matches.
We will have time. Finally, we will have time.
It must be divine. There's no "I hope" in that. It must be divine. Every encounter, every conversation, every experience, every "wrong" way. All it would take is one conversation and I could be on my way towards something I've been holding out for, believing for (sometimes without realizing it) for what seems like a long time.
It's a little rediculous. But,
1. I need to know my country.
2. I want to find within myself a love my country that I have yet to experience.
3. I need to let this person I've discovered find out what it's here for without any specific people or place or group influencing that.
4. Jesus Christ is alive and he's moving.. I saw him in such color in Ghana, but I have to believe he's shining here too, and I want to see it.. to be a part of THE body of Christ, not just one segment of it, as it is functioning across denominations here in America.
5. It's time to give and time to take. I'll leave pieces of this heart along the way, but I'm taking pieces of others' with me as I go.
*6. In the morning when I awake I have this odd feeling that I'm not waking up in the right place. Not that it's the wrong place, but it's not the right place. I'm going to find the right place. I can no longer wait here and beckon for it to come to me.
There are moments when I panic a little. The reality of it is that there will be cold nights, days where we're filthy, hungry. The boat may break down. The people may turn their backs. The people of God may disappoint me. The maps may take us down roads we never wanted or expected to travel.
Which is why this whole darn thing needs to be divine. It has to be. Because every day that passes is another day that could have been changing someone's life, filling someone's stomach, clothing someone's back, nursing someone's wounds. Every day I'm here is another day I'm not there. And while these days sometimes seem long, they're going by all too fast. I need to get there. I need to be sitting in the dirt surrounded by dark, dusty faces. I need to be carrying hope in action to a world deprived of even the smallest of necessities.
[ignorance really was bliss.]
Across America I want to find love. I want to find people who want exactly what I want and who are willing to work for it as we find a way to do something about it.
But I need to know my own country first. I refuse to leave America resentful of what I had here. I need to be humbled and grateful, and the ugly truth is that I'm not.
And I need time to slow down so I can breathe this crisp, fresh air and let the changes it makes sink deep into my being.
(jack kerouac,
you've driven me mad!
for this i am grateful.)
The ship sails in 40 days! What the "ship" will look like and where she will be going are yet to be determined. But I've discovered something wonderful, and that is that I must go. The thought of driving through my country (my country..) with no place to be and no time to have to be anywhere.. the thought of paying my bills three months in advance, grabbing my passport (nothing is out of the question for this one) from the safe, filling my duffel bags with the fewest of items I might need for the journey (a girl needs a good sweater, some trustworthy spandex pants and alpaca mittens, for sure), stocking the ship (oh, I can't wait to name her!) with bulgur, wheat berries, beans, granola..
We will have a tent. We will have couchsurfing.com. We will have our books of empty pages. We will have Spanish tutorials and tapes. We will have maps (sorry GPS, you didn't win the battle for this heart). We will have hiking shoes, a video camera, sleeping bags, flashlights, and matches.
We will have time. Finally, we will have time.
It must be divine. There's no "I hope" in that. It must be divine. Every encounter, every conversation, every experience, every "wrong" way. All it would take is one conversation and I could be on my way towards something I've been holding out for, believing for (sometimes without realizing it) for what seems like a long time.
It's a little rediculous. But,
1. I need to know my country.
2. I want to find within myself a love my country that I have yet to experience.
3. I need to let this person I've discovered find out what it's here for without any specific people or place or group influencing that.
4. Jesus Christ is alive and he's moving.. I saw him in such color in Ghana, but I have to believe he's shining here too, and I want to see it.. to be a part of THE body of Christ, not just one segment of it, as it is functioning across denominations here in America.
5. It's time to give and time to take. I'll leave pieces of this heart along the way, but I'm taking pieces of others' with me as I go.
*6. In the morning when I awake I have this odd feeling that I'm not waking up in the right place. Not that it's the wrong place, but it's not the right place. I'm going to find the right place. I can no longer wait here and beckon for it to come to me.
There are moments when I panic a little. The reality of it is that there will be cold nights, days where we're filthy, hungry. The boat may break down. The people may turn their backs. The people of God may disappoint me. The maps may take us down roads we never wanted or expected to travel.
Which is why this whole darn thing needs to be divine. It has to be. Because every day that passes is another day that could have been changing someone's life, filling someone's stomach, clothing someone's back, nursing someone's wounds. Every day I'm here is another day I'm not there. And while these days sometimes seem long, they're going by all too fast. I need to get there. I need to be sitting in the dirt surrounded by dark, dusty faces. I need to be carrying hope in action to a world deprived of even the smallest of necessities.
[ignorance really was bliss.]
Across America I want to find love. I want to find people who want exactly what I want and who are willing to work for it as we find a way to do something about it.
But I need to know my own country first. I refuse to leave America resentful of what I had here. I need to be humbled and grateful, and the ugly truth is that I'm not.
And I need time to slow down so I can breathe this crisp, fresh air and let the changes it makes sink deep into my being.
(jack kerouac,
you've driven me mad!
for this i am grateful.)
August 30, 2009
I saw a red leaf today
I'm on a quest to find the beauty here in northern new york. it won't be hard to do. this place is it's own tinybutwonderous sanctuary to the realms beyond, only masquerading as the here and now. Living here all my life I'm sad to say I've begun to overlook so much of what this area has to offer. In too many ways I've traded the beauty for boredom, being frustrated and letting myself feel dull on Friday nights with "nothing to do". Oh, there is plenty to do! A few years from now I may no longer have a river to sit by, a clear sky to stare into or thousands of acres of woods to wander through. Then I'll be longing for one more day (just one more day!) back in this land of rushing waters.
Life goes fast. I'm young, but I know this much. And I'm tired of wishing I was somewhere else doing something else with some other people. Right now, I'm here, so here is where I'm going to be, knowing full-well I won't be here much longer. I want to leave knowing I know this place, and that I lived it.
Life goes fast. I'm young, but I know this much. And I'm tired of wishing I was somewhere else doing something else with some other people. Right now, I'm here, so here is where I'm going to be, knowing full-well I won't be here much longer. I want to leave knowing I know this place, and that I lived it.
August 27, 2009
"Freedom"
I wonder what I'm becoming.
Bananas and granola are the staples in my diet.
Running 9 miles no longer hurts, but helps. significantly.
Outside on a cold dark night, I am swept away. My insides get lost in the starry summer sky. It's so close. It's so, so close! I remember when it seemed so far away.. like it was yesterday.
Yesterday I would have seen what you saw and run the other way. Yesterday I would have tried my hardest to be your definition of perfect in every way. Yesterday I would fought, hard, to become something, anything. Yesterday my greatest fear was being misunderstood.
The truth is, I don't care so much anymore. I don't care what you see. I don't care how you interpret who I am or what I do. I don't care if you see me and get me totally, completely, entirely wrong. In fact, please do. It just might define me more.
People used to tell me I seemed so free, so light, so myself. I always laughed lightly, choked inside, and brushed it off, only to revisit it for hours on end later when I was alone by some body of water, in some vacant studio, some isolated field..
See, you never saw my tears. You never saw the hours and hours of shaking, sobbing, choking, aching. You never saw the struggle, the fight for my own soul, my own person, my own thoughts, feelings, dreams, desires, being.
Even the label "free-spirit" drowned out some of the most beautiful things inside of me. I bet you never would have guessed that.
It's one thing to become who they want you to be, letting that become who you are in the process.
It's another thing entirely to dig deep inside yourself, fighting past the expectations, the stereotypes, the comparisons, the presumptions and end with something unique, raw, bizarre, rare.
I want to live a life that demands questions. I don't want to be the girl you look at and say "oh yeah, well that makes sense," and if you knew me at all, even a little bit, you'd know - I'm not.
Nothing worth anything at all in my life has made sense. Nothing. Not a single thing.
I don't want my person to make sense. I don't want my life to make sense.. not what I do, not who I am, not what I believe for, not what I fight for. If it makes sense it's too easy.
Life's not that easy. No. In fact it's hard. Really, really hard.
You like answers. I don't have many. They're not that easy to come by.
But the little bit of substance I do have is enough for me.
Take that as you will.
Bananas and granola are the staples in my diet.
Running 9 miles no longer hurts, but helps. significantly.
Outside on a cold dark night, I am swept away. My insides get lost in the starry summer sky. It's so close. It's so, so close! I remember when it seemed so far away.. like it was yesterday.
Yesterday I would have seen what you saw and run the other way. Yesterday I would have tried my hardest to be your definition of perfect in every way. Yesterday I would fought, hard, to become something, anything. Yesterday my greatest fear was being misunderstood.
The truth is, I don't care so much anymore. I don't care what you see. I don't care how you interpret who I am or what I do. I don't care if you see me and get me totally, completely, entirely wrong. In fact, please do. It just might define me more.
People used to tell me I seemed so free, so light, so myself. I always laughed lightly, choked inside, and brushed it off, only to revisit it for hours on end later when I was alone by some body of water, in some vacant studio, some isolated field..
See, you never saw my tears. You never saw the hours and hours of shaking, sobbing, choking, aching. You never saw the struggle, the fight for my own soul, my own person, my own thoughts, feelings, dreams, desires, being.
Even the label "free-spirit" drowned out some of the most beautiful things inside of me. I bet you never would have guessed that.
It's one thing to become who they want you to be, letting that become who you are in the process.
It's another thing entirely to dig deep inside yourself, fighting past the expectations, the stereotypes, the comparisons, the presumptions and end with something unique, raw, bizarre, rare.
I want to live a life that demands questions. I don't want to be the girl you look at and say "oh yeah, well that makes sense," and if you knew me at all, even a little bit, you'd know - I'm not.
Nothing worth anything at all in my life has made sense. Nothing. Not a single thing.
I don't want my person to make sense. I don't want my life to make sense.. not what I do, not who I am, not what I believe for, not what I fight for. If it makes sense it's too easy.
Life's not that easy. No. In fact it's hard. Really, really hard.
You like answers. I don't have many. They're not that easy to come by.
But the little bit of substance I do have is enough for me.
Take that as you will.
August 22, 2009
Over Me.
Some days I'm an artist.
Some days I'm a leaf.
Some days I'm just a girl with pockets full
of sand, sea-glass, and staggered words.
I'm a recurring dream-
never leaving, never resting, always
real.
That tiny yellow bird lost in thick branches-
home.
Tell me where tell me why tell me when
or watch the raindrops join the ocean.
(today, this makes much more sense
to me)
I'm a highly influenced architect
building myself a teepee.
You can join or you can watch.
Some days I'm a leaf.
Some days I'm just a girl with pockets full
of sand, sea-glass, and staggered words.
I'm a recurring dream-
never leaving, never resting, always
real.
That tiny yellow bird lost in thick branches-
home.
Tell me where tell me why tell me when
or watch the raindrops join the ocean.
(today, this makes much more sense
to me)
I'm a highly influenced architect
building myself a teepee.
You can join or you can watch.
July 12, 2009
sooniwillsurf
energy is threatening to spurt out of me every which way one of these days i will able to withhold it no longer when that happens i will do something that will seem crazy to you know that while i may not know exactly what im doing i know that im doing what i need to do and ill be okay ill be better off ill understand something i didnt understand before something i need to understand in order to go any further in this life ill be more me more full more free society doesnt give enough credit to such things but they are things i cant keep shoving aside simply because they tell me i must no no i must respond thats what i must do
youll call it drastic crazy illogical idealistic unrealistic foolish you wont understand but thats okay im okay with that i wont be angry or bitter or hurt but it wont stop me either ill keep going or maybe ill already be on my way by the time you find out in which case please pass a happy thought for me or dont but dont pass a harsh one either i know im not exactly the american idol or even at all but im me and the longer i linger the more of me i lose so know that im not lingering anymore im out there im wild im free there will be bad nights and brilliant nights warm nights and lonely nights with melodies and some composed of silence i will know me finally i just might know me and ill know them and ill see life and ill become a part of something much bigger and broader than what ive believed ill have less and gain just as ive been wanting just as ive been longing
its been in me a long time but its becoming more prominent these days much louder i cant quiet it cant still it cant ask to settle down and be content i dont have plans yet i have a plan i get squirmish at the thought soon i wont be able to sleep but still i will hold my hot tea stare at the sky and be still for no matter how far i go how fast im going there will always be more to unravel in the quiet
youll call it drastic crazy illogical idealistic unrealistic foolish you wont understand but thats okay im okay with that i wont be angry or bitter or hurt but it wont stop me either ill keep going or maybe ill already be on my way by the time you find out in which case please pass a happy thought for me or dont but dont pass a harsh one either i know im not exactly the american idol or even at all but im me and the longer i linger the more of me i lose so know that im not lingering anymore im out there im wild im free there will be bad nights and brilliant nights warm nights and lonely nights with melodies and some composed of silence i will know me finally i just might know me and ill know them and ill see life and ill become a part of something much bigger and broader than what ive believed ill have less and gain just as ive been wanting just as ive been longing
its been in me a long time but its becoming more prominent these days much louder i cant quiet it cant still it cant ask to settle down and be content i dont have plans yet i have a plan i get squirmish at the thought soon i wont be able to sleep but still i will hold my hot tea stare at the sky and be still for no matter how far i go how fast im going there will always be more to unravel in the quiet
my new life plan:
I don't want a "normal" job because nothing about normalcy appeals to me. Well, except for drinking hot tea on a comfy couch in my pj's while the sun wakes up, rubbing the sleepies out of the warming sky. That appeals to me. But other than that and the occasional steakhouse steak, I don't want normal. What I do want is a life that lets me be active and productive while exploring fresh places and encountering new people, cultures, lifestyles and ideas.
After much debate I have decided that the perfect career path for me just might be.. (hold your breath)
A professional tri-athlete.
That's right. I could workout all day, thus giving me all the endorphins I will need to get through my cold, sleepless nights living out of my beautiful blue tent. It would start out slow and painful, of course, gradually becoming fast and painful, but potentially shifting into sponsorship (Peter Pan peanut butter should probably be my first), some nice prize winnings, and races all over the world calling me night and day asking me to make an appearance. I would have to choose carefully so as not to build too great of a name for myself too quickly, but I think all in all it could be quite the endeavor, yeah?
yeah.
If I only I liked biking. ;)
After much debate I have decided that the perfect career path for me just might be.. (hold your breath)
A professional tri-athlete.
That's right. I could workout all day, thus giving me all the endorphins I will need to get through my cold, sleepless nights living out of my beautiful blue tent. It would start out slow and painful, of course, gradually becoming fast and painful, but potentially shifting into sponsorship (Peter Pan peanut butter should probably be my first), some nice prize winnings, and races all over the world calling me night and day asking me to make an appearance. I would have to choose carefully so as not to build too great of a name for myself too quickly, but I think all in all it could be quite the endeavor, yeah?
yeah.
If I only I liked biking. ;)
July 5, 2009
but i hear a song.
I'm feeling compelled to write a bit so I figured why not share it with a few people.
My soul is overwhelmed; I am full and empty at the very same time. There's a beauty I believe in, a beauty I cannot shake, and I want more than anything to get lost in it.. all day, every day. I want it to be my life.
I'm not my "successful" brother. I'm not my overachieving sister. I'm not my practical, set-for-life best friend. I'm not my endlessly working dad. I'm not.. a lot of things.
but I hear a song. It's inside of me.. deep, deep inside of me. And it wants to come out. It wants to flow out of me and be my life, not just a part of my life. It wants to carry me away with every progression and every note, be them right or wrong..
I'm not afraid to fail. I'm not afraid to take a chance. What I'm afraid of is not taking any chances; of living a reasonable, safe, typical life. It seems to work for a lot of people, a whole lot of people, actually, and there's a lot I have yet to figure out about myself..
but I know enough to know that's not the life I want. I know enough to know that life will never fullfill me, satisfy me, bring me life, "work" for me. And I really don't want it to.
With the very life of Christ pulsing through my veins, I refuse to settle for anything less than LIFE, and that to the very fullest. To settle for anything less is to forfeit the truly incredible capacity of what I believe in more than I believe in anything else.. and that's something my insides won't let me do.
"one thing i do: forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus..." (phil. 3:13-14)
My soul is overwhelmed; I am full and empty at the very same time. There's a beauty I believe in, a beauty I cannot shake, and I want more than anything to get lost in it.. all day, every day. I want it to be my life.
I'm not my "successful" brother. I'm not my overachieving sister. I'm not my practical, set-for-life best friend. I'm not my endlessly working dad. I'm not.. a lot of things.
but I hear a song. It's inside of me.. deep, deep inside of me. And it wants to come out. It wants to flow out of me and be my life, not just a part of my life. It wants to carry me away with every progression and every note, be them right or wrong..
I'm not afraid to fail. I'm not afraid to take a chance. What I'm afraid of is not taking any chances; of living a reasonable, safe, typical life. It seems to work for a lot of people, a whole lot of people, actually, and there's a lot I have yet to figure out about myself..
but I know enough to know that's not the life I want. I know enough to know that life will never fullfill me, satisfy me, bring me life, "work" for me. And I really don't want it to.
With the very life of Christ pulsing through my veins, I refuse to settle for anything less than LIFE, and that to the very fullest. To settle for anything less is to forfeit the truly incredible capacity of what I believe in more than I believe in anything else.. and that's something my insides won't let me do.
"one thing i do: forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus..." (phil. 3:13-14)
June 3, 2009
a cappella.
Last Friday I decided to give up music for a week.
I spend, on average, five hours a day in my car. Usually these hours turn into intense workouts for my vocal chords. Sometimes they lead me far away, sometimes deep inside myself, sometimes I become someone else. Sometimes I *holding breath* realize things. Sometimes my eyes get stuck on some distant point beyond the windshield, and I am nowhere. But whatever my state happens to be, it is indubitably affected by the music that surrounds me. I am always sensing the music. Until now I had no idea just how much.
I've gone five days without music now, and I miss it terribly. I've been forced to reckon with some things in my heart that probably wouldn't have come out had I not been sitting alone in SILENCE for 25 hours in my car. When I come home and walk in my room I am faced with thoughts and memories I've been able to hide from when the music is playing. When I write there is no tune to get me "flowing" and I'm finding out what's really "in there"...
I catch myself humming and singing songs all the time now. It's been interesting because they're songs I don't typically listen to and/or haven't heard in a really long time.. they're songs that mean something to me for right now as opposed to the songs that sound good to me right now.
Music is its own sense. For me, anyway. It's an escape, an inspiration; music gets me excited, calms me down. There's nothing bad about any of those things. But I'm realizing right now that maybe I'm missing out on some parts of me that are really quite important simply because I'm always immersing myself in music.. there's always something else to keep me interested, to keep me entertained, to keep my mind leaping from thought to thought as the tracks change from song to song. Certain songs carry certain "spirits" with them, which I so easily plug into and out of as quickly as the songs start and stop. This week it's been me.. and my own spirit.. duking it out. I've laughed. I've cried [a lot]. I've been uncomfortable, at times.
My EXITS have significantly decreased.
Uncomfortable, and good.
(Friday at 7pm I will be listening to music. Probably all night. For now, I'm exhausting myself.. and realizing a lot.)
I spend, on average, five hours a day in my car. Usually these hours turn into intense workouts for my vocal chords. Sometimes they lead me far away, sometimes deep inside myself, sometimes I become someone else. Sometimes I *holding breath* realize things. Sometimes my eyes get stuck on some distant point beyond the windshield, and I am nowhere. But whatever my state happens to be, it is indubitably affected by the music that surrounds me. I am always sensing the music. Until now I had no idea just how much.
I've gone five days without music now, and I miss it terribly. I've been forced to reckon with some things in my heart that probably wouldn't have come out had I not been sitting alone in SILENCE for 25 hours in my car. When I come home and walk in my room I am faced with thoughts and memories I've been able to hide from when the music is playing. When I write there is no tune to get me "flowing" and I'm finding out what's really "in there"...
I catch myself humming and singing songs all the time now. It's been interesting because they're songs I don't typically listen to and/or haven't heard in a really long time.. they're songs that mean something to me for right now as opposed to the songs that sound good to me right now.
Music is its own sense. For me, anyway. It's an escape, an inspiration; music gets me excited, calms me down. There's nothing bad about any of those things. But I'm realizing right now that maybe I'm missing out on some parts of me that are really quite important simply because I'm always immersing myself in music.. there's always something else to keep me interested, to keep me entertained, to keep my mind leaping from thought to thought as the tracks change from song to song. Certain songs carry certain "spirits" with them, which I so easily plug into and out of as quickly as the songs start and stop. This week it's been me.. and my own spirit.. duking it out. I've laughed. I've cried [a lot]. I've been uncomfortable, at times.
My EXITS have significantly decreased.
Uncomfortable, and good.
(Friday at 7pm I will be listening to music. Probably all night. For now, I'm exhausting myself.. and realizing a lot.)
May 20, 2009
Going.
After four days of living out of a car and sleeping in whatever bed/couch was closest, it can now be confirmed:
I am a wanderer by nature. It is in me; it is a very, very deep part of me. I can't escape it.
It just is.
I will wear my clothes all day, sleep in them, and start the next day the very same way. I will eat marshmallows roasted over the kitchen stove at midnight, and call them dinner. I will sleep on your couch, even if I barely know you. I will wander calmly through cities I do not know. I will brush my teeth in McDonald's bathrooms. I will shower at campgrounds. I will buy last week's Thomas bagels for half-price. I will fill up my water bottle at rest stops. I will paint my face in the dark. I will wrap myself in my ripped-up, aging patchwork quilt. I will knot strings around my wrists.
And I will be very, very alive.
*sigh*
Last night while sitting next to a fountain in downtown Syracuse a friend asked me where I saw myself. I tilted my head questioningly.
"like, where do you see yourself living? Do you want to live in a city, in a suburb, in the country, in Africa? Where do you want to spend your life?"
I can't answer that question unless "all of the above, plus lists and lists more" is an option. I don't want to spend my life in any one place. I don't have a dream home all perfectly structured in my mind or a certain place I want to settle down and raise my kids and establish my life...la la la.. It's nearly impossible for me to even think like that. I want to go places. I want to fall in love with a zillion people and places. I want to learn heaps and heaps from every unique, challenging situation I am in. I want my life to be such that every time I think I've figured something out, I experience something new that tears up what little I had thought I knew; to be constantly re-shaped as I am constantly re-evaluating; continually uncomfortable. Always shifting and becoming. I have no desire to just be.
It was nice to sit with someone who felt the same way. For those five hours I felt, dare-I-say, normal. And even beyond normal, I felt exceptional. I felt beautiful. I felt like I had something worth having. I felt, I honest-to-goodness felt as though what was stirring within me was what it's going to take to change the world.
To change the world you must believe in the Possibile more than you believe any of the limitations, regulations, or systems that convince us there is such a thing as "impossible". You must be willing to look rediculous. You must be willing to go without. You must be willing to fail. You must be willing to let go.
And you must know what it means to Love.
Four days sleeping in four different places
and I feel better than I've felt in a long time. It's deep inside me, which is exactly how I believe it should be.
I am a wanderer by nature. It is in me; it is a very, very deep part of me. I can't escape it.
It just is.
I will wear my clothes all day, sleep in them, and start the next day the very same way. I will eat marshmallows roasted over the kitchen stove at midnight, and call them dinner. I will sleep on your couch, even if I barely know you. I will wander calmly through cities I do not know. I will brush my teeth in McDonald's bathrooms. I will shower at campgrounds. I will buy last week's Thomas bagels for half-price. I will fill up my water bottle at rest stops. I will paint my face in the dark. I will wrap myself in my ripped-up, aging patchwork quilt. I will knot strings around my wrists.
And I will be very, very alive.
*sigh*
Last night while sitting next to a fountain in downtown Syracuse a friend asked me where I saw myself. I tilted my head questioningly.
"like, where do you see yourself living? Do you want to live in a city, in a suburb, in the country, in Africa? Where do you want to spend your life?"
I can't answer that question unless "all of the above, plus lists and lists more" is an option. I don't want to spend my life in any one place. I don't have a dream home all perfectly structured in my mind or a certain place I want to settle down and raise my kids and establish my life...la la la.. It's nearly impossible for me to even think like that. I want to go places. I want to fall in love with a zillion people and places. I want to learn heaps and heaps from every unique, challenging situation I am in. I want my life to be such that every time I think I've figured something out, I experience something new that tears up what little I had thought I knew; to be constantly re-shaped as I am constantly re-evaluating; continually uncomfortable. Always shifting and becoming. I have no desire to just be.
It was nice to sit with someone who felt the same way. For those five hours I felt, dare-I-say, normal. And even beyond normal, I felt exceptional. I felt beautiful. I felt like I had something worth having. I felt, I honest-to-goodness felt as though what was stirring within me was what it's going to take to change the world.
To change the world you must believe in the Possibile more than you believe any of the limitations, regulations, or systems that convince us there is such a thing as "impossible". You must be willing to look rediculous. You must be willing to go without. You must be willing to fail. You must be willing to let go.
And you must know what it means to Love.
Four days sleeping in four different places
and I feel better than I've felt in a long time. It's deep inside me, which is exactly how I believe it should be.
May 7, 2009
Bits.
Sometimes I think life would be easier if it came in bits.
I'm in the process of switching from coffee (which I cut down to one small cup a day) to tea-bag chai. My new morning beverage routine is as follows:
Fill tea pot. Put tea pot on stove. Turn on stove. Retrieve large ceramic mug from cupboard. Retrieve chai tea bag from cupboard. Sit on stool. Stare into open space spinning nonsensical thoughts through murky mind. Hear a hiss. Pour hot water into ceramic mug while holding the tea bag so it doesn't sink. Watch tea bag bob in the waves of the freshly poured water. Bob tea bag when the waves stop. Add large spoonful of local honey to hot tea. Add milk to hot tea.
I enjoy everything about this far more than in my previous life when I enjoyed my hot cups of coffee. A friend once told me my tea tasted like leaves. Well friend, yes, yes it does a bit doesn't it.
I happen to really like leaves.
Which makes spring a little sad. All the leaves are in brown mushy layers on the ground.
Where I lay and stare at the clouds after running barefoot in a field I just discovered on the very top of a gigantic hill in the center of a city. Everything about it is perfect. Individuals, no doubt claiming disability, are picnicing just over the hill; old men and women (truly disabled) sit in their cars memorizing the view.
My insides are calmer than they have been since I feasted on that red dirt. Something is happening inside of me, and it's good. Really good. I think it helps to let go. It sucks, but it helps.
I'm in the process of switching from coffee (which I cut down to one small cup a day) to tea-bag chai. My new morning beverage routine is as follows:
Fill tea pot. Put tea pot on stove. Turn on stove. Retrieve large ceramic mug from cupboard. Retrieve chai tea bag from cupboard. Sit on stool. Stare into open space spinning nonsensical thoughts through murky mind. Hear a hiss. Pour hot water into ceramic mug while holding the tea bag so it doesn't sink. Watch tea bag bob in the waves of the freshly poured water. Bob tea bag when the waves stop. Add large spoonful of local honey to hot tea. Add milk to hot tea.
I enjoy everything about this far more than in my previous life when I enjoyed my hot cups of coffee. A friend once told me my tea tasted like leaves. Well friend, yes, yes it does a bit doesn't it.
I happen to really like leaves.
Which makes spring a little sad. All the leaves are in brown mushy layers on the ground.
Where I lay and stare at the clouds after running barefoot in a field I just discovered on the very top of a gigantic hill in the center of a city. Everything about it is perfect. Individuals, no doubt claiming disability, are picnicing just over the hill; old men and women (truly disabled) sit in their cars memorizing the view.
My insides are calmer than they have been since I feasted on that red dirt. Something is happening inside of me, and it's good. Really good. I think it helps to let go. It sucks, but it helps.
April 25, 2009
Don't..
I've lost track of how long its been since I got back. Some days I don't think about it at all. Other days I can't think about anything else.
Every day, even when I'm not thinking about "it", I feel it. It doesn't leave. That it's there even when I'm not seeing their faces and when I've stopped counting the days leads me to believe it's not going to go away any time soon.
When I shift my mind to think about them, I hear them. I see them. I smell them. And I am transported. My clock registers four hours later than what it actually says, and I am there. I am staring at the sky, flying down a dirt road on a motor bike, being followed by crowds of children in the market, running like a fool down a dryed out soccer field, pounding nails into rediculously hard wood, sitting in the dark with someone I didn't have enough time to really get to know. I am sipping instant coffee as the morning arrives. I am staring at the most beautiful people I have ever seen, except I can't see them because its dark out.. and there are no lights.
My senses were more in tune there.
Every time I look at the photos they seem farther away. I hate that, so I don't look at them nearly as much as I used to. Saying "it hurts too much" sounds cliche and overdramatic, but it's the truth. When I look back at them, when I force myself to stop and remember, I hurt. And as much as I don't want that to ever stop, I need to move forward. I can't forget about them, and I won't, but I also know that I need to keep going..
I've spent so many days wishing I was there.
But it's time to be here.
My mind needs a shift. But Dear Heart, please don't ever, ever forget*
Every day, even when I'm not thinking about "it", I feel it. It doesn't leave. That it's there even when I'm not seeing their faces and when I've stopped counting the days leads me to believe it's not going to go away any time soon.
When I shift my mind to think about them, I hear them. I see them. I smell them. And I am transported. My clock registers four hours later than what it actually says, and I am there. I am staring at the sky, flying down a dirt road on a motor bike, being followed by crowds of children in the market, running like a fool down a dryed out soccer field, pounding nails into rediculously hard wood, sitting in the dark with someone I didn't have enough time to really get to know. I am sipping instant coffee as the morning arrives. I am staring at the most beautiful people I have ever seen, except I can't see them because its dark out.. and there are no lights.
My senses were more in tune there.
Every time I look at the photos they seem farther away. I hate that, so I don't look at them nearly as much as I used to. Saying "it hurts too much" sounds cliche and overdramatic, but it's the truth. When I look back at them, when I force myself to stop and remember, I hurt. And as much as I don't want that to ever stop, I need to move forward. I can't forget about them, and I won't, but I also know that I need to keep going..
I've spent so many days wishing I was there.
But it's time to be here.
My mind needs a shift. But Dear Heart, please don't ever, ever forget*
April 7, 2009
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".
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".
March 31, 2009
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)
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)
March 8, 2009
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!
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!
March 5, 2009
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.
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.
March 4, 2009
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.
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.
February 19, 2009
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..
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..
January 21, 2009
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
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
January 14, 2009
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**
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**
January 9, 2009
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.
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.
January 2, 2009
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
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
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