...and we took the one that leads to Colorado!
Daniel and I have been tentatively planning on something like this since we got married, or even before. We wanted to spend a couple of years in Harrisonburg, long enough to transition to post-college life and for Daniel to finish seminary. Then, our sense was that we should go somewhere else for a while. To see a new part of the world, to stretch ourselves by going beyond our current social context, and basically just to have new experiences. We felt confident that spending some time in an unfamiliar place would be good for us, even as we felt confident that we will eventually move back to Harrisonburg.
In December of 2014, we applied to be leaders for the Service Adventure program with Mennonite Mission Network (website here), and in March, we accepted a position as house leaders in Colorado Springs. The term for leaders is two years, while the term for participants is 10 months, so we'll be there for two program cycles.
Our responsibilities involve living in the house, coordinating things like meals and worship nights, and basically mentoring these 18-year-olds as they adjust to life in a new place and work in full-time volunteer placements.
We'll have the option to work or volunteer part-time outside of our role as house leaders. (The leader role is one part-time position which the two of us are splitting.) Park View Federal Credit Union, Daniel's employer for the past two years, has made arrangements for Daniel to continue working remotely on a half-time basis. (Because Daniel does most of his work over the phone already, this is a reasonable option.) This is an obvious blessing, in part for the added stability of knowing one of us already has a job, and in large part because Daniel loves his job and will be happy to continue doing it.
I'm planning to take a break from teaching violin. I may take it up again in January, but I'd like to spend the fall season exploring some other interests. I would love to work in the nonprofit sector, especially with sustainable food systems. Specifically, I've had some conversation with Pike's Peak Urban Gardens, an organization that is doing lots of exciting things in the Colorado Springs community. I'm planning to intern with them and learn as much as possible about their work.
We're leaving Harrisonburg on July 19, and on July 22, we'll begin orientation in Colorado Springs with our fellow leaders and the director of Service Adventure. Our participants (at this point, three young women) will arrive August 7: one from North Carolina, one from Kansas, and one from Germany.
We intend to keep our family, friends, and Harrisonburg community updated as much as possible. As sad as it will be to say goodbye to Harrisonburg, I'm so excited to get to know Colorado Springs and our new friends there. In the meantime, please pray for us and for our future housemates!
Tuesday, June 30, 2015
Monday, June 29, 2015
Twilight sounds
Lately I've been on the lookout for new music to listen to. (New to me, I mean.) I've been remembering my tendency during high school to find a new song or artist, listen to it obsessively on repeat, and psychoanalyze it lyrically and melodically in search of greater meaning and symbolism.
I don't do that much anymore, and in a way, I miss it. So I've been wandering the corridors of Spotify, trying on new things, in part because I legitimately want to find new music I like and in part just to become more culturally literate.
Right now I like The Paper Kites.
But it's a simple fact of my life that whenever I search for a new band or album, I never have any expectation that I'll find one I love on the same plane as I love the Wailin' Jennys. There are lots of songs and artists I love, but they all exist on an inferior stratum beneath the glorious soul-enriching experience that is TWJ.
And that's okay.
Last night after dinner, in the dimming twilight of a summer evening that is my absolute favorite time, I went for a walk. I listened to Starlight and the rhythm was perfect for walking and the cool breeze blew toward me and I tipped my face up to the sky, clear at last after a rainy day, and the universe made sense.
"In the end, I wonder if the true movement of the world might not be a voice raised in song." (The Elegance of the Hedgehog, p.185)
So I'll keep listening to all kinds of music, I hope. But after all, it's still nice to know that I can always come back to this.
Right now I like The Paper Kites.
But it's a simple fact of my life that whenever I search for a new band or album, I never have any expectation that I'll find one I love on the same plane as I love the Wailin' Jennys. There are lots of songs and artists I love, but they all exist on an inferior stratum beneath the glorious soul-enriching experience that is TWJ.
And that's okay.
Last night after dinner, in the dimming twilight of a summer evening that is my absolute favorite time, I went for a walk. I listened to Starlight and the rhythm was perfect for walking and the cool breeze blew toward me and I tipped my face up to the sky, clear at last after a rainy day, and the universe made sense.
"In the end, I wonder if the true movement of the world might not be a voice raised in song." (The Elegance of the Hedgehog, p.185)
So I'll keep listening to all kinds of music, I hope. But after all, it's still nice to know that I can always come back to this.
Friday, June 19, 2015
The home of my heart: Reflections on past, present, & future
I spent the past three days counseling at Highland Retreat, the place where a piece of my heart will always live, and let me tell you, I feel so blessed. I can say without a doubt that the absolute happiest times of my life have been the summers I've spent working at camp, and this short week was no exception.
Three days sounds so short when we look at it from the lens of typical American life. But three days at camp s t r e t c h e s o u t so much more than you would imagine. It is a world unto itself. So at the close of my three days (a mere 72 hours) at my beloved Highland, I feel like I've experienced another life. I've lived another lifetime, not as a different person (because I feel most fully myself at camp -- or at least my best self), but in another context. (I could go on about how boring my everyday life seems now, but I won't.) Being there both stretches me dramatically and at the same time grounds me comfortably into my own skin. And the people I worked with, some of whom I met for the first time three nights ago, now feel like good friends.
These are the things that make living life not-at-camp so difficult. When you can be somewhere with incredible friendships, beautiful children, hilarious moments, profound encounters, living life at the top of your lungs -- why would you want to do anything else? When each day stretches out to include almost every emotion under the sun (but most of them good), making you feel more alive than you've ever felt before, why would you want to change anything? When you can sink into bed each night exhausted with the effort and thrill of living large, tired and glad right down to your very bones, who could settle for less?
These are the questions I've been asking myself since Tuesday night. And here is a related, but perhaps even more important, issue:
When I'm working at camp, I feel like I've found my calling, my most glorious passion in life. I feel like I'm doing what I was born to do. Who could ask for more than that, right? But I also feel -- now more than ever -- that it is so hard for me to make this work. When camp only runs 8 weeks of the year, but demands all your time and energy for those 8 weeks, how can I reconcile that life with my other responsibilities? I have to do something for the other 44 weeks of the year, and generally most of my other options want me to be committed year-round. Also, being married and working at summer camp isn't the easiest thing, especially when your spouse also has a full-time year-round job that he loves.
Which brings me to the question at hand. If working at camp is my utmost life's work, my most fulfilling and important experience, why does it feel so logistically impossible? In other words, why would God call me to do something that feels practically impossible to do?
So then, of course, I have to ask myself: Is it really impossible? Are we not to believe that with God all things are possible? Maybe I need to change the way I'm looking at the situation? For truly, if this is what I am meant to do, then I must find a way.
Thoughts and advice are welcome. Until next time, friends.
Three days sounds so short when we look at it from the lens of typical American life. But three days at camp s t r e t c h e s o u t so much more than you would imagine. It is a world unto itself. So at the close of my three days (a mere 72 hours) at my beloved Highland, I feel like I've experienced another life. I've lived another lifetime, not as a different person (because I feel most fully myself at camp -- or at least my best self), but in another context. (I could go on about how boring my everyday life seems now, but I won't.) Being there both stretches me dramatically and at the same time grounds me comfortably into my own skin. And the people I worked with, some of whom I met for the first time three nights ago, now feel like good friends.
These are the things that make living life not-at-camp so difficult. When you can be somewhere with incredible friendships, beautiful children, hilarious moments, profound encounters, living life at the top of your lungs -- why would you want to do anything else? When each day stretches out to include almost every emotion under the sun (but most of them good), making you feel more alive than you've ever felt before, why would you want to change anything? When you can sink into bed each night exhausted with the effort and thrill of living large, tired and glad right down to your very bones, who could settle for less?
These are the questions I've been asking myself since Tuesday night. And here is a related, but perhaps even more important, issue:
When I'm working at camp, I feel like I've found my calling, my most glorious passion in life. I feel like I'm doing what I was born to do. Who could ask for more than that, right? But I also feel -- now more than ever -- that it is so hard for me to make this work. When camp only runs 8 weeks of the year, but demands all your time and energy for those 8 weeks, how can I reconcile that life with my other responsibilities? I have to do something for the other 44 weeks of the year, and generally most of my other options want me to be committed year-round. Also, being married and working at summer camp isn't the easiest thing, especially when your spouse also has a full-time year-round job that he loves.
Which brings me to the question at hand. If working at camp is my utmost life's work, my most fulfilling and important experience, why does it feel so logistically impossible? In other words, why would God call me to do something that feels practically impossible to do?
So then, of course, I have to ask myself: Is it really impossible? Are we not to believe that with God all things are possible? Maybe I need to change the way I'm looking at the situation? For truly, if this is what I am meant to do, then I must find a way.
Thoughts and advice are welcome. Until next time, friends.
Tuesday, June 2, 2015
The Republic of Imagination
I'm reading a new book. Isn't it pretty?
I picked it up on a whim from the "New Books" display at the public library, and it falls under "a book you chose because of the cover" in my 2015 reading challenge -- though in truth it first caught my eye because of the spectacular title. (But the cover is pretty amazing too.)
The author has this to say about the title:
I think of it as Nabokov's "somehow, somewhere" or Alice's backyard, a world that runs parallel to the real one, whose occupants need no passport or documentation. The only requirements for entry are an open mind, a restless desire to know and an indefinable urge to escape the mundane.
That, in a sentence, is why I love to read.
I picked it up on a whim from the "New Books" display at the public library, and it falls under "a book you chose because of the cover" in my 2015 reading challenge -- though in truth it first caught my eye because of the spectacular title. (But the cover is pretty amazing too.)
The author has this to say about the title:
I think of it as Nabokov's "somehow, somewhere" or Alice's backyard, a world that runs parallel to the real one, whose occupants need no passport or documentation. The only requirements for entry are an open mind, a restless desire to know and an indefinable urge to escape the mundane.
That, in a sentence, is why I love to read.
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