Something Beautiful

These footprints were worn into the wood by a 70-year-old Buddhist monk, who stood in the same spot to pray for 20 years. Devotion.
Story here.

i must say, i love that i am friends with such a diverse group of people. Along with being invited to a wedding in Saudi Arabia this month (which, sadly, I can't attend), a friend of mine has been posting all day about the Libyan struggle. The most recent, after swearing he wouldn't sleep until they were free, was declaring his first day in the free, newly reborn Libya. Then, of course, there are the Tea Partiers and the lawyers and the artists and the stay-at-home parents and the retired... I love that, when something major happens on the other side of the world, I know someone involved in it. Congratulations, Libya!

Domestic Goddess

sometimes, i can be a good home maker. This morning I was up before 7, doing dishes and vacuuming the carpet with my first cup of coffee in hand and my music playing just a little too loud. Next the plants were watered, the porches and tea house swept, and then I picked this gorgeous haul of blueberries. The finger's in the picture so you can see just how many there are. Tons!!

The best way to pick blueberries is to shove yourself into the bush, start with the top branches, and then hold the branches up with your head as you work your way down. I probably looked like a crazy lady, barefoot and in my pajamas, shoved into a blueberry bush and singing to myself. Domestic goddess, gypsy style.

So, when I was done my hair was a mess, my fingers purple, and I was covered in spiderwebs (and a few spiders, probably). But had so many blueberries! And a clean house!

Seriously, Suzie Housemaker here. I even cooked some veggies with fresh rosemary for lunch.

Ok, enough domesticity, and time to do schoolwork. But while I do that, I'm going to fill up the kiddie pool and give Squirt the Turtle some playtime.

In my early 20's I was engaged with a group of hurting and fairly pessimistic Christians. At the time, I thought they were progressive and truthful, and didn't pick up on the underlying negativity. One of the girls noted that she was done “recommitting” her life to Christ. “I mean, how many times can you stand up and say 'I'm committing to follow Jesus?' I'm already committed, and it seems redundant.” It made sense to me at the time, and I decided that the whole recommitment thing was, well, silly.

I've been thinking a lot about arrested development over the last few days. While in certain areas of my life I'm growing, I feel like other areas have been in a holding pattern for years. I think a main reason why is because, in the back of my mind, recommitment was unnecessary.

“Look, I am making all things new,” God says. But they don't stay that way, do they? Newness is inherently temporary. This morning in community group we were talking about life cycles. It's everywhere—plants die in the winter and are reborn in the spring. Business leaders come into dying businesses and bring new lifeblood until they, too, need replacing. Friendships ebb and flow with life circumstances. Storms and floods wash away centuries of civilization that then need to start over. It's all around us, the cycle of renewal. And we don't just say “Well, I already planted that flower, and it grew, so it's silly for it to die and then regrow in spring.”

Spiritually, we go through times of distance from God. Even Mother Theresa had about 20 years where she said she didn't feel God. I can feel it when it's coming on, and I guess since my early 20's I've fought it. Maybe that's not the right word. I know it's coming, and I sigh, and I trudge through, and I don't celebrate reconnecting with God when it finally happens. I fight learning and settling into my new revelations—which are oftentimes just reminders of and expansions on basic principles I've known since I was young. My logic was something like: It's silly, to focus on a lesson you already knew and were reminded of, because that lesson was already learned. I couldn't see the new facets in what had already been a part of me. And that led to arrested development. Nothing was really worthwhile because it was all the same, and would always be the same, and when you've seen it all and done it all... as Solomon put it in Ecclesiastes:

Meaningless! Meaningless!
Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless.

What has been will be again,
what has been done will be done again;
there is nothing new under the sun.

And, I can relate to Solomon when he came to the conclusion: “So I hated life...”

Now, after only about a decade, I'm finally arriving at his conclusion in that book: that with God the meaningless has meaning. The cycles are there for a reason. We may not know why, but that's the design. And new life is to be celebrated, in whatever form it takes. This makes me ok with all of the re-learning I have to do. Rather than fighting it, or feeling silly for the close-then-distant dance of my spirituality, I can embrace it as part and parcel of being a living being on this earth.

The eucalyptus trees in Australia grow in harsh conditions. In the outback, there's little rain and barely any nutrients in the soil. The trees cluster together in groups, their bark shiny and soft, and grow where they shouldn't be able to survive. Their bark sheds regularly, peeling off and landing at their base. Over time, that bark decays and turns into nutrients that then feed the tree, helping it grow stronger. Layer after layer, the outer skin of the tree dies and is reborn, so that the tree can grow stronger and taller and flourish. Through its own death, the tree generates more life within itself.

While I remain the same person, things grow and die and are re-born in a different way inside of me. Benjamin Franklin said, “When you're finished changing, you're finished.” Life is change. And for some reason I've embraced this in most realms of my life except for my spirituality. This changes today. I'm embracing the cycle.

Images from: top , middle (Copyright Wilbert Saint), and bottom

sleep apnea. Justin died of sleep apnea.

Dad, use your CPAP machine!!!

Providence

this is more for me than anyone else.

I was looking through my blog and realized I hadn't posted this, and that I need to be reminded of God's providence from time to time, so I want to document it:

I got off of the Max in Oregon City, determined to find my way home via bus but also had an urgent need to go to the mall I was dropped off at. I don't like malls, generally. Shopping is my least favorite activity (seriously. I'd rather milk a cow.), but for some reason I NEEDED to go to the mall. I went into the ladies room and heard someone crying outside the stall. I went to wash my hands, and I met Avery, a young girl, crying and washing her face in the sink. She asked if I was from Oregon and I said no.

Turns out, she'd been stranded in the mall by her boyfriend. They both lived about an hour away. Through talking to her, I found she'd been on meth for 6 years, had decided she was over it, and her and her boyfriend went to rehab in Portland. When they were done detoxing and released from the hospital, he went to find more meth. She told him that she was done with it, he said he wasn't, called her a b*tch, and drove away. Leaving her stranded, with no money, no way to get home, no clue of how to get home, and in a really vulnerable state.

I sat with her for about an hour, looked up bus/train routes to her home, called my brother to get a better handle on public transport, and just listened. She kept telling me she'd never had anyone be so nice to her--which was disheartening. To me, this is what people should just Do. So, we found her a bus and a train to her home town. I gave her my bus pass and $10 (it was a 6 hour trip, I figured she'd be hungry at some point). When I heard from her, she was home and happy. We've kept in touch, and she's ditched the crappy boyfriend and is in long-term rehab and seems happy.

Ten bucks was a lot for me, at the time. As was the bus pass. But what a great thing to contribute to! While I was waiting for my ride home, I wandered over to a local Mexican food joint. I was super hungry. I sat at the bar, not wanting to sit by myself in a restaurant about dinner time. Immediately, the guy next to me started chatting me up. Ended up that he shared his dinner with me, offered me a job that I didn't take, and generally we had a nice friendly time. And? I got steak. Yummy. I tried to refuse, but he insisted. Hard.

Then, I told him I'd just moved here and had no job, etc. He pulled out a huge wad of bills, took out $20, and set it in front of me. I thanked him but declined. He made such a scene that I realized it was better to just take the money. Humbling, for sure. I tried to hand it back to him several times but he got to the point that he was angry, so I took it. With much thanks. He made so money, he told me, that he would rather I have it.

So, God doubled my investment. I've given money before that never came back to me, which is fine. It's nice to have a reminder that God repays us for what we invest, though.

I wanted to remind myself of that.

i've been reworking my resume in the hopes of, you know, getting a job. I spent all day yesterday going over interesting resumes online and considering making my own personal logo, etc, etc... just to decide to scrap the whole "interesting resume" thing and stay traditional. Sigh. Which is still taking a long time.
Sigh.

about a month ago, i found out a friend of mine died. They don't know why. I wrote a big, long, rambling post about him at the time. I never actually posted it--because it was a big, long, rambling post. But I watched Deadliest Catch tonight, and saw him on there with his giant smile and his laugh, and I heard his voice, and I miss him. So here are some of the good parts from that past post:
---------------------

here's the thing: when someone you love dies, you're never ready for it. Even my grandpa, who was well into his 80's and had to go to dialysis--actually, especially my grandpa--I wasn't ready for.

When I was in Alaska, things were alright for a while. There were shenanigans, boats catching fire, boats almost sinking, me with the inability to use my hands--all of the things you think happen on a boat. But then we docked. And Mitch and I didn't really know what to do with each other. I mean, we were supposed to be in love, but really we just weren't getting along, and we had been hired to paint the boat over a one month period of time. So, we spent a month acutely aware of each other, working next to each other, while simultaneously wanting to claw each others eyes out.

Enter Justin. He was on the Time Bandit, tied up across from us. He was a giant, lovely man with a big laugh who was always down to hang out with... well, anyone, it seemed. When things were bad between Mitch and I, he would ease me. When I was left alone to do work on the boat, Justin would make jokes that kept me going all day.

Life on the docks is different. I never knew if I should talk to someone or if I would be better served to just punch them in the face. So, I was wary when we first spoke. I barely remembered the guys from the Time Bandit. And then, I was leaving to get supplies for our boat, and Justin was sitting at the dock, talking about how they were all having a family "reunion" but he was over it. "It's too much," he said, "even though they're all my family, too." So I sat with him for a minute, just shootin the sh*t, talking about how intimidating family gatherings can be. He was off to his Grandma's house. His Grandma, according to him, was the most wonderful woman the Lord had ever made. After I ran my errands, I was disappointed not to see him still waiting.

This giant, hard-lived man would spill his guts. I mean, he was friendly with everyone, and he was a talker. Within our first few conversations, I learned all about his family, his kids, his regrets and his current state of mind... and, mostly, how his grandma was "the sh*t." He was so proud of his kids. He was so excited to be on the Time Bandit and making something of himself. He was a really great man.

After a while, he was quieter and would ask me all about myself. He knew how to talk and he knew how to listen. He invited us over to his boat to "look at pictures of pretty sh*t." And he showed Mitch and me a bunch of pictures from a recent trip. He was amazed at how beautiful everything was.

And, he was my buddy!! He made me laugh and helped me feel sane when I was doubting myself and feeling alone. He was the first one who verbally told me that what Mitch was doing was bullshit. One night when I was alone on that creepy boat in that scary dock, and not for the first time, he came over to borrow some flour (not kidding!). He walked onto my boat, tucked my hair behind my ear, and told me that he would never leave me alone.

He made everything better. Justin had the incredible ability to make me feel like everything in the world was right. Even when nothing was. For a short period of time, he was what actually made my life alright. And I'm not just saying that because he passed on. He really was that person for me. Maybe he was that person for a lot of us at the Homer dock.

He passed away in February. I can't find a reason why. Literally. They don't know. Maybe it was the hard living when he was younger--I know he was mostly off drugs when he died. I don't know. It would be easier if I knew. I think I may have gone back to Alaska for the season if I knew he'd be there. We had a few loose ends, at least on my part.

I wasn't ready for him to go.

what i want to do for my birthday:
1st choice: racing. Like, watching. At Speedway.
2nd choice: hockey. Game. Wherever

Unfortunately, my birthday falls in between these events.

BOO.

Something Beautiful

jonas salk.

With all he did, he refused to patent his polio vaccine. Which, to me, is beautiful.

I was looking for a video of it, but all I could find was one from the Michael Moore film. I'm still going to put it up, but wish I had a different one.



So many of the great inventions we live with today were considered the people's property, rather than belonging to one person/corporation who then gets rich. I could say much more, but I've tucked my soap box away for the day so I'll let this stand alone.

I love that he says "Can you patent the sun?" Beautiful man.

this morning i woke singing "how great is our god" and dreaming of a widowed pastor's wife. The point of the dream, I think, was to hold on to and praise God even when things seem terrible. Not a new point, but one I apparently needed to be reminded of.

How great is our God.

Something Beautiful

MAYE TORRES

a few days ago my mom and i watched a documentary titled who does she think she is? Maye Torres was one of the artists chronicled in the doc. Listening to her speak and interact with her children was inspiring. And, her work is just ridiculous. This work is titled "Forming Wings." I like this one because of the progression in it--the bird turning into what I see as God's protective hands. Or maybe it's the transformation of the woman into her own protector/ascension.

Either way, beautiful. You can check out more from her at: http://www.mayetorresart.com/

Discord

"We have an awesome responsibility to remember who we are."

-Rev. Calvin Culpepper

today i am fasting. Each time my stomach growls I thank God for all They have done for me.

I'm not sure what I'm in the process of learning, honestly. It seems discordant, and there is no neat little bow to wrap it all up with. It's like a pile of clothes on the floor, and you don't know what's dirty and what's clean and you have no hamper to just shove it all into--and would you really want to mix it all together, if you could? That's what my brain is like right now.

I guess it comes down to responsibility. The responsibility of who we are, and the responsibility of living. There will always be things about me that I don't like--and there will always be a part of me that wants to point out those shortcomings to myself. I know I'm hard on myself. I've always been, and that's not likely to go away. So there's this part of me that, honestly, wants to bring me down. At the same time I honestly love who I am and have worked hard to become a woman I can be proud of. I've come to accept my mistakes as positive things--a professor in my undergrad said that "It's a mistake not to make mistakes." And that opened up worlds to me. If I'm not making mistakes, I'm not growing and moving forward. But then I want to beat myself up over mistakes. And round and round we go.

Add to that the responsibility of walking this earth, especially as a person of passion and faith. Who we are is a great responsibility. We are given life and breath and brains and minds. The choices we make will create waves and change the world's course. If the wings of a butterfly can cause a hurricane, then surely our daily actions can have an impact. Living actively and with purpose is a powerful thing.

On Sunday the reverend spoke directly to the discord I was feeling. There is a place in life where perception is splintered: between who we are and who we want to be, between our current life and the life we hope for.

Oswald Chambers says that when we encounter dismay, we need to live in it for a season rather than holding on to a better past or a brighter future. Dismay, Chambers says, is a discipline. We learn during these times. But, it's uncomfortable. Sitting with dismay was not my favorite thing to do.

I'm back to joyous thanks and excitement about the future. Still, with no resolve. Practicing living amongst discord.

Chasm

lent, day 2

There's a lovely Hasidic story of a rabbi who always told his people that if they studied the Torah, it would put Scripture on their hearts. One of them asked, "Why on our hearts, and not in them?" The rabbi answered, "Only God can put Scripture inside. But reading sacred text can put it on your heart, and then when your hearts break, the holy words will fall inside.

-Anne Lamott

Today, I feel like the embodiment of this quote. My Utmost for His Highest talks about being living messengers of God, that we don't just tell about God's love but that God's love is, essentially, who we are. I don't know if this necessitates brokenness, but it feels like it.

Today I feel like I'm living in the chasm between who I am and who I want to be. It's not a comfortable place to live in. The process of Becoming isn't, really, a cake walk. (Remember those? I went to one at a fair when I was a child in North Dakota. I won a Black Forest with bright red cherries on top. It was delicious.) In a cake walk, you are certain to win. You know the outcome will be delicious cake. In actively living life, you don't know the outcome for the steps you take. And so many of my steps, in retrospect, appear seriously wrong. I am proud to have taken risks and made mistakes, but I can still feel the sting of the mistake. I think God wants me to live with this uncomfortableness for a while. And so I am. I'll be thankful to move forward from here, though.

(Photo by Emi Anrakuji)

Something Beautiful

as a part of lent, i'm finding something i find beautiful/inspiring every week and meditating on it. This week it's this:

Resentment is like swallowing poison and waiting for it to kill your enemy.

-Nelson Mandela

In other words, forgiveness. Holding on to anger and bitterness only poison us, not those we're angry at. This idea of resentment/bitterness compared to poison has been around for centuries, I guess, but Mandela made it famous.

For the days before Ash Wednesday, forgiveness was the focus of my days. I think in order to do the 40 day personal Spring Cleaning of Lent, I'm going to have to go through layers of forgiveness. I'm trying.

Wednesday's Blog

t-shirt from zazzle.com

i want my life to be beautiful.

My mantra for at least the past decade has been: I want to be the best possible version of myself. Not perfect, but messy and passionate and constantly learning. Growing.

Along those lines, I'm observing Lent for the first time. At first, my goal for Lent was "To get my sh*t together." But I think my focus was wrong. So, I'm going to seek God--because when I seek God, my sh*t seems to gather itself together.

Today, Ash Wednesday, is a day for recognizing your mortality. Rather than sadness, I feel immense joy. Because while I come from dust and I'll return to dust, the life I live in between is going to be pretty kick *ss. There's freedom in realizing you only have one life, and that it will end. The pain isn't permanent. The mistakes we make as temporary humans, though they seem insurmountable to us, are chances for God to grow something beautiful. And though the joy isn't permanent either, it's the joy that reverberates through time.

I like to picture our lives on a spiritual plane. There's a whole realm operating at all times that we don't understand. I like to picture that realm in terms of light--our actions and thoughts that glorify God and serve others shine throughout time and space. Like those images of Earth from space at night, all the cities lit up so that you can see them even from space. As if each of those lights were people loving each other in real, active ways. Living a life whose light can even be seen from space.



I want to walk with God in a way that can be seen from distant galaxies.

"Showing no concern for the uncertainties that lie ahead is the secret of walking with Jesus." -Oswald Chambers

Watching Julie and Julia

there is so much to say

Right now, my thoughts:

1) I have a new MacBook. And my dear dad to thank. Thank you, Pop. This means more than you know.

2) Those things I experience I don't define as "adventures" enough. A woman on this movie got off the train and explained it as "an adventure." I doubt, honestly, if it compares to the *literal* riot before I got on the bus bound for Barcelona, of the 36 hours I spent on a train in India--but still I don't define them as adventures. I need to rethink this.

3) I'm super excited for my next adventure.

keep you updated?

Aloha!

So, keeping you updated wasn't really an option. For over a month my hands were too tired and sore for me to do much of anything, and writing wasn't really an option. The summer was CRAZY. Difficult, tiring, challenging, exhilarating, and helped me learn about myself. Good. And bad. Thankfully, I wrote down the major events that happened so I can backtrack and tell you about all the crazy experiences: boats nearly sinking, people trying to throw people overboard, shooting fish with guns, fires, and more.

Currently, I am in Portland with my brother and his family. Getting rest. It's nice to be around people who have known me for more than a few months. It's nice to not be so exhausted and busy that I have time to be my overthinking self again. There was ZERO time for reflection on the boat. So now that I'm away from Alaska I get to choose what my life is going to look like next--a daunting privilege. I am thankful to have the time to figure it out.

new news

we just got word that i'm on the boat for the summer. :) We always knew Mitch was on, it was just getting me on that was the snag. So we're both on one of the nicest boats in the harbor for the summer, doing tendering in Prince William Sound.

Happy happy joy joy

So much has changed in the last month. I left my home in Hawai'i to seek out snowier pastures and love. In Alaska.

As much as I adored the art studio, things went very very bad. My business partner and I reached an impasse, and I just didn't have it in me to fight anymore. As much as I adored Hawai'i, I spent my 4 1/2 years there fighting. For myself, for social issues, to put food in the fridge. And I was just done. Tired. So when this fight arose, I didn't have anything left to put into it. And then Mitch came along.

We met at a friend's apartment for an impromptu dinner, and spent his last days in Hawai'i together before he had to move back to Alaska. After he left, I woke nearly every morning hating being away from him. So, when it all fell apart and I was going to move out of the studio and look for another job anyways, I figured I might as well do that in Alaska. Might as well follow my heart.

I'm currently living in a yurt on a snowy hill overlooking the mountains. It's taken some adjusting, but I've been trying to keep myself immersed in a freelancing project I have--both for money and to make the transition a little easier. We're hoping to get on a fishing boat for the summer (which would be AWESOME). Life is good. Cold, sniffly-nosed, moose- and bald eagle-watching, rain-on-the-tarp-while-working-on-a-rusty-boat, wood-furnace-heated-home, quiet, peaceful, lovely crisp air good.

And so I'm on to my next adventure. I'll keep you updated.