humanity

"Ubuntu speaks of the very essence of being human.  We say, 'Hey, so-and-so has ubuntu.'  Then you are generous, you are hospitable, you are friendly and caring and compassionate.  You share what you have.  It is to say, 'My humanity is caught up, is inextricably bound up, in yours.'  We belong in a bundle of life.  We say, 'A person is a person through other persons.'
...
A person with ubuntu is open and available to others, affirming of others, does not feel threatened that others are able and good, for he or she has a proper self-assurance that comes from knowing that he or she belongs in a greater whole and is diminished when others are humiliated or diminished, when others are tortured or oppressed, or treated as if they were less than who they are."
-Desmond Tutu

my loves

I emailed my English advisor yesterday to tell him I'm changing my major (to liberal arts with an English concentration, for those of you who didn't know), and he responded by saying, "Though I hate to see you go as an English major, I completely understand your reasoning here.  It makes sense, particularly since your "first love" seems to be music."

    Which caused me to make a face sort of like this:

Because, obviously (to me), music isn't my first love, nor is it my primary love, and certainly not my only love.  It made me ask myself, then -- what is my "first love"?

I don't think I can confine myself by choosing one thing (which, now that I think about it, is a pretty good example of why I'm changing my major to liberal arts).  I love so many things I can't even list them all, and I'm always finding new things to love.  That's why I've spent several hours recently researching (and falling in love with) the art of growing bonsai trees.  :)
My deepest, truest love stems from pursuing a genuine, Christ-like, loving, community-centered way of living. I know that's about as broad a category as it could possibly be, and I like it that way.  That means that there's enough room for my whole life to fit in that category.  And that, ultimately, is my goal.

here's to porches

These days I am struck by my readiness to throw myself into community.  I spent a summer learning exactly what that means and exactly how important it is to me, and I am beyond excited that this year will (hopefully) involve embracing a similar kind of community.  In imagining the apartment and intentional community I'll be living in, I can see so many possibilities for grace, depth, and being Christ to each other.  I can't wait to experience the simplicity of living together:  cooking and eating together, sharing joys and burdens, walking together in mutual accountability and love.

It's not just this kind of community that I want, though.  Today I told someone that I'm turning myself into a porch-sitter.  It might sound more or less negligible, but I think there's something profound in simply moving yourself out to your front porch.  Not only does it allow you to be closer to nature and creation, it makes you physically visible and also more emotionally present to your neighbors (both literal and figurative).  It opens up opportunities to interact with those who pass by around you.  And perhaps most of all, it forces you to expand beyond your comfort bubble of your house.  I always say the one thing I want to avoid most in life is complacency, and letting myself remain comfortably within my own four walls seems overly complacent.

Maybe it's overanalyzing to claim that the act of sitting on your porch encompasses all these things, but I need a metaphor for the things I'm striving for.  So here's to becoming a society of porch-sitters:  people who venture beyond what is merely comfortable and strive for openness, acceptance, and risk-taking vulnerability.

love, courage, wisdom

Love without courage and wisdom is sentimentality, as with the ordinary church member.  Courage without love and wisdom is foolhardiness, as with the ordinary soldier.  Wisdom without love and courage is cowardice, as with the ordinary intellectual.  But the one who has love, courage, and wisdom moves the world.


~Ammon Hennacy

joy of the redeemed

Isaiah 35

The desert and the parched land will be glad;   
  the wilderness will rejoice and blossom.
Like the crocus, it will burst into bloom;
   it will rejoice greatly and shout for joy.
The glory of Lebanon will be given to it,
   the splendor of Carmel and Sharon;
they will see the glory of the LORD,
   the splendor of our God.
Strengthen the feeble hands,
   steady the knees that give way;
say to those with fearful hearts,
   “Be strong, do not fear;
your God will come,
   he will come with vengeance;
with divine retribution
   he will come to save you.”


Then will the eyes of the blind be opened
   and the ears of the deaf unstopped. 
Then will the lame leap like a deer,
   and the mute tongue shout for joy.
Water will gush forth in the wilderness
   and streams in the desert.
The burning sand will become a pool,
   the thirsty ground bubbling springs.
In the haunts where jackals once lay,
   grass and reeds and papyrus will grow.


And a highway will be there;
   it will be called the Way of Holiness;
   it will be for those who walk on that Way.
The unclean will not journey on it;
   wicked fools will not go about on it.
No lion will be there,
   nor any ravenous beast;
   they will not be found there.
But only the redeemed will walk there,
  and those the LORD has rescued will return.
They will enter Zion with singing;
   everlasting joy will crown their heads.
Gladness and joy will overtake them,
   and sorrow and sighing will flee away.

night revelations

Sometimes the world seems so much more manageable in the daylight.  Then at night my thoughts come undone and I can't remember which way is up.  This happened to me on Thursday night, when I realized I only have one more week at camp.  Which is one more week at the place that makes me happier than anywhere else in the world.  I know I will be happy after that too, but right now being in the real world sounds so awful to me.  So my thoughts kept spinning in circles in the middle of the night, forcing me to ask myself a lot of questions.

Like these:  Why am I happier here than in the "real world"?

What is it about life at camp that completes me?

How can I make it overlap more with my life at school?

And what do I do if it doesn't?

I don't have a lot of answers, but I do have a few revelations.  Like this one:

Life at camp is simple.  It's not easy; it's full of challenges, but it's simple.  All you have to do is love God, love the kids, and love the other staff.  And really, that's what I want to do in life:  love God and love the people around me, to the fullest extent I can. 

Here's another one:

I don't know exactly how the different parts of my life fit together, but I'm becoming oddly comforted by the phrase "It is what it is".  And I know that everything will be okay.  I believe in myself enough to follow what feels right to me, and being at camp teaches me a lot about what feels right.

reteaching beauty

The bud

stands for all things,

even for those things that don't flower,

for everything that flowers, from within, of self-blessing;

though sometimes it is necessary

to reteach a thing its loveliness,

to put a hand on its brow

of the flower

and retell it in words and in touch

it is lovely

until it flowers again from within, of self-blessing;

as Saint Francis

put his hand on the creased forehead

of the sow, and told her in words and in touch

blessings of earth on the sow, and the sow

began remembering all down her thick length,

from the earthen snout all the way

through the fodder and slops to the spiritual curl of the tail,

from the hard spininess spiked out from the spine

down through the great broken heart

to the sheer blue milken dreaminess spurting and shuddering

from the fourteen teats into the fourteen mouths sucking and blowing beneath them:

the long, perfect loveliness of sow.

-Galway Kinnell

honesty and animal products

I realized this week that I am becoming the kind of vegetarian that I used to look upon scornfully.  By this, I mean that I have eaten pizza with bacon on it and lasagna with meat in it just in this week alone.  Contrary to what you might think, this is not to say that I'm forgetting or ignoring or giving up on my beliefs.  It just means that I'm becoming more relaxed about things.  I've come to understand very deeply the reasons why I choose not to eat meat, and with that understanding comes the acceptance that there will be times when it is okay to make exceptions.  I think in life it's best to be adamantly sure about some things and easygoing about others -- otherwise you just end up with a bunch of halfway ideas.

Anne Lamott is amazing, and you know why?  It's because she writes so honestly and freely about her own struggles and shortcomings.  Unlike the other 99 percent of the human race, she doesn't pretend to have it all together.  And she's not like those people who acknowledge that we have problems but don't really like to go into detail, either.  Most of her writing revolves around the times when she has to work hard to be okay, and she tells her stories with humor and also with reverence for what is beautiful and true.
This is one of my favorite parts from Grace (eventually), which I finished this week, and it kind of sums up the way I feel about working with kids.

Children can connect you to the child inside you, who can still play and be silly and helpless and capable of wonder.  This child does not have to be yours, of course.  It can be a niece or nephew, or the child of a friend.  But living with a child makes the opportunity for this more likely.  Having a child, loving a child deeply in a daily way, forces you to connect with your mortality, forces you to dig into places within that you have rarely had to confront before, unless you have taken care of a dying parent or friend.  What I found way down deep by caring for my father during his illness and then by having a child is a kind of eternity, a capacity for -- and reserves of -- love and sacrifice that blew my mind.  But I also found the stuff inside me that is pretty miserable.  I was brought face-to-face with a fun-house mirror of all the grasping, cowardly, manipulative, greedy parts of me, too.  
I remember staring at my son endlessly when he was an infant, stunned by his very existence, wondering where on earth he had come from.  Now when I watch him sleep, I know that he somehow came from life, only I cannot put it into words any better than that.

dependence

I've never had to enter a week of camp with questionable health before.  This week, by the time the kids came, I wasn't as sick as I was last week, but I still had a bad cough/cold...which I expected to get better quickly.  Except then it didn't.  And at night, I couldn't sleep because of coughing so much, which didn't do a whole lot to help my energy levels.  So I was concerned, because I wanted so much to do everything I could for my kids, and yet I knew for sure that my own strength was quickly fading.
Every morning, when I woke up feeling like I hadn't slept at all, after spending hours of the night coughing, I couldn't do anything but ask God to be my strength.  Psalm 55:22 says, "Cast your burden on the Lord, and he will sustain you; he will never allow the righteous to be shaken."  And this week taught me that this is true.  How else is it possible that I had more than enough energy to keep up with a cabin of seven- and eight-year-olds?

I also came to realize the way being around kids at camp energizes me.  Some would say it's exhausting to be responsible for a group of children (and spend most of your time surrounded by many more) for a week, and in a way, it is.  But I also know that their excitement and joy for life becomes my own.  Being surrounded by them, by their playfulness and hilarity and all-encompassing love, is more of a blessing than anyone who hasn't experienced it can understand.

So, all in all, I am thankful for the chance to believe in a strength that is greater -- and I'm ready for whatever challenge comes next.

a beginning

I decided a while ago that this summer I want to write something at the end of each week at camp, so that I have some real way of reflecting on what I've learned and treasured and experienced that week.  It's hard because there's so much.  So instead of trying to describe everything that happened during the past nine days of staff orientation at Highland, I think they can be summed up in these ways.

God is in our laughter.  I can't describe all the things that happened and the ways we made each other laugh this week.  But I know that the level of craziness, humor, and laughter at camp is something I haven't found anywhere else.  We truly love each other and love being together.

God is in the rain.  At the beginning of the week, it rained copious amounts every single day.  Everything was cool and wet and muddy, and even though I tend to love the sunshine, it was nice, in a way.  The earth lives on water, you know.

God is in the stars.  One night we had Fireside around the baby pool, dangling our feet and singing songs to the skies.  There's a kind of peace that comes over the world at Highland that can't be matched by a world with cars and lights and climate control and chaos.  Another time all the female staff walked back from the fire circle after dark and lay in a circle on the soccer field, watching the stars brighten and fade above us.

God is in our voices.  I love music.  Most people know that.  But even more than rehearsed music, I love the moments when it just happens and it is so beautiful.  We hiked to Tiger Rocks on Tuesday, which takes about three hours to get there.  And after eating lunch at the top, we spontaneously burst into our own rendition of "In The Jungle".  If you don't know, it's the song from The Lion King, with lots of harmony parts and creativity.  And that moment was so life-giving for me because of the way we all fit together without even trying.  It was symbolic of the way I feel about the staff this year:  cohesive, well-blended, exuberant, and loving.  I often wish my life was a musical, and that moment made me feel like it was.

And God is in the kids.  May we be prepared to accept them with outstretched arms this coming week.  May we be given enough grace, strength, and energy to give them everything they need.  And may God shine in us.

wedding sights

I think my favorite thing about weddings is the way everybody cares so much, and I could tell this just by looking around.  I loved looking at the bride in her glorious, lace-covered beauty, but even more than that, I liked the way the air felt different when she was there.  I liked watching everyone else and seeing their eyes get soft when they looked at her.  And I liked the bridesmaids' mother-hen manner as they flitted around her, fixing her train and protecting her from even the slightest harm on her happiest day.  I loved seeing that everyone there was the same as their usual selves but also more, in a culmination of joy and beauty.  That was the best part -- that all the energy and love was focused on that day, right then.

I like this because I am just so very susceptible to hovering, and because of that, sometimes I don't adjust well to in-between-ness.  But instead of hovering I want to embrace here and now, always.  For this time is what I have been given, no matter how much I always seem to look toward the next thing instead of being in the present.  How blessed I am to have things to look toward... but still, for now, I will try to teach my timid feet to land.

validation

I feel like I'm losing my words.  Either that or summertime signifies a decrease in things that make me think deeply.  Actually, that's probably it.
Still, I have this need to express my current life in words, thereby validating it in some way.  So here's a random collaboration of thoughts, for better or for worse.

1)  There is so much wisdom to be learned from our elders.  At least my elders.  This week I helped my grandma clean her house, which mostly included talking to her, hearing her stories, thoughts, and life experiences.  I haven't even begun to imagine some of the things she's experienced, and I felt so blessed to hear her speak of them.
2)  I think I might try writing a poem every day for some undetermined stretch of time.  I love reading poetry, and I want to practice writing it too.
3)  People are great.  Did you know that?  This morning I decided that if my life were an experiment, the one conclusion I would feel qualified to make is this:  People are great.
4)  I am surprisingly (to myself) adamant in my dislike of Wal-Mart.  I've long been opposed to a corporation that ruthlessly exploits workers, vendors, and customers, but I recently read the book "How Wal-Mart is Destroying America (And the World):  And What You Can Do About It".  And since then, whenever I hear about people shopping at Wal-Mart, I just think, do they KNOW?  I mean, are they AWARE what they are supporting??
If you're curious, read that book.
5)  Yesterday Melody and I realized that we read different books of the Bible for our accountability group.  We're supposed to pick one together each week when we meet and then read that book, separately, throughout the week.  But this week we realized she read Romans and I read Hebrews, which is seemingly unexplainable and also hilarious.
6)  I'm going to a wedding tomorrow for two people I love a lot.  I think weddings have to be my favorite large social events -- they're just so happy!
7)  I'm taking a French language CLEP test in two weeks.  It's actually nice to re-induct myself into the language of my high school years... plus I get to read Charlie Brown in French.  I mean, really-- is there any better way to study?
8)  I am so inexpressibly excited to work at camp again this summer.  It is such a blessing...to devote yourself to serving and loving more than you ever thought you could.  I know it's going to be challenging too, and I can't wait to see the ways God is working in all of our lives and what I learn from it.
9)  I've missed 11:11 a lot recently.  I'm not taking it as a sign.
10)  I'm finding myself simply thankful.  God is here, in my life, and I know such beautiful people.  And how lucky am I to get to experience both of those things at the same time?  Everyone should be so blessed.

So, although I would like to believe that my life is not quantifiable, there it is in list form.

"Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, "This is the way; walk in it."  -Isaiah 30:21

believing

Because even though I feel as if I am drowning in rain these days, I still believe in sunshine and blue sky and days that exude happiness.

i thank You God for most this amazing day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees and a blue true dream of sky;and for everything wich is natural which is infinite which is yes (i who have died am alive again today, and this is the sun's birthday;this is the birth day of life and love and wings:and of the gay great happening illimitably earth) how should tasting touching hearing seeing breathing any-lifted from the no of all nothing-human merely being doubt unimaginable You? (now the ears of my ears awake and now the eyes of my eyes are opened) ~i thank You God by e.e. cummings

my aspirations

Poetry like this wraps its words so lovingly around truth, leaving me in wonder at its effortless capturing of everything I strive for.

To Begin With, the Sweet Grass

(excerpts)

2.

Eat bread and understand comfort.
Drink water and understand delight.
Visit the garden where the scarlet trumpets
    are opening their bodies for the hummingbirds
who are drinking the sweetness, who are
    thrillingly gluttonous.

For one thing leads to another.
Soon you will notice how stones shine underfoot.
Eventually tides will be the only calendar you believe in.
And someone’s face, whom you love, will be as a star
both intimate and ultimate,
and you will be both heart-shaken and respectful.
And you will hear the air itself, like a beloved, whisper:
oh, let me, for a while longer, enter the two
beautiful bodies of your lungs.

3.

The witchery of living
is my whole conversation
with you, my darlings.
All I can tell you is what I know.

Look, and look again.
This world is not just a little thrill for the eyes.

It’s more than bones.
It’s more than the delicate wrist with its personal pulse.
It’s more than the beating of a single heart.
It’s praising.
It’s giving until the giving feels like receiving.
You have a life–just imagine that!
You have this day, and maybe another, and maybe
    still another.

6.

Let me ask you this.
Do you also think that beauty exists for some
    fabulous reason?

And, if you have not been enchanted by this adventure–
your life–
what would do for you?

7.

What I loved in the beginning, I think, was mostly myself.
Never mind that I had to, since somebody had to.
That was many years ago.
Since then I have gone out from my confinements,
    though with difficulty.
I mean the ones that thought to rule my heart.
I cast them out; I put them on the mush pile.
They will be nourishment somehow (everything is nourishment
    somehow or another).

And I have become the child of the clouds, and of hope.
I have become the friend of the enemy, whoever that is.
I have become older and, cherishing what I have learned,
I have become younger.

And what do I risk to tell you this, which is all I know?
Love yourself. Then forget it. Then, love the world.

~Mary Oliver

summer reading list

So I just made a reading list for this summer.  I have a gigantic ongoing reading list, but these are a few I picked for the next few weeks/months:

1)  The Chronicles of Narnia -- classics.  I've been wanting to re-read them for a long time, and if you haven't read them yet, you really should.
2)  The Lacuna (Barbara Kingsolver) -- I love Barbara Kingsolver more than words can adequately express, and I haven't read this one yet.  Thus, it is on my list.
3)  The Sound and the Fury (William Faulkner) -- I'm reading this as part of a group of English majors who started a reading blog to talk about books this summer.
4)  Water for Elephants (Sara Gruen) -- This is just a random one that people keep telling me I should read.  I've been putting it off for a while, but I did that with the Kite Runner too, and look how fantastic that one turned out to be.
5)  The Brothers K (David James Duncan) -- again, it's been highly recommended and has been on my monster book list for a while.
6)  To Kill A Mockingbird (Harper Lee) -- my favorite book in the whole world.  


any book suggestions are always welcomed.  :)