hey october, nice to know ya.

woof, its been a minute. but i know that once i start a sentence, there will be no shortage of words, useful perhaps, but more than likely not. it'll be a bunch of not-shocking rambling. again.

its mid/later october. where did these 2 months ago? it is madness to me. to be fair, i wished them away, and i only slightly regret it. but i made it through them, and that is victory enough. in the last 2 months, i have quit 2 of my 3 jobs, decided to go public about transferring, and started a new job. for about a week i only had 2 roommates, with all of the rent info in my name. but that got sorted. and i was working 7 days a week, hating my jobs, not sleeping, and praying for 15 minutes pinches of time to read for class. i dropped a class and my student bill double. i officiated my first ever memorial in the same week that my parents put my dog down. i used every time crunched survival card i had. i was mind stumblingly exhausted, but this time, i could feel all of it. and it was terrible.

and then october graced me with its presence. hallelujah, what a month. i now work for Fastenal & i literally sell nuts and bolts. every time a grizzly man walks in, sizes up my femininity, i work double to find what they're looking for. and I've gotten it right a few times. i finally started sleeping again, and now, i leave work happy. i see my people. i laugh with the TAs. i do morning prayer with matthew. I'm watching the 5th harry potter movie in a row with my roommates. (good life) i re-enrolled in a class and my professor gave me so much grace.

its october, thank God. this summer, i healed & i got my F back. i am a survival thinker, but i think the feelings are more honest. i cried 4 days in a row a couple weeks ago. and it was freedom. dr qualls & dr mcconnell let me cry in front of them, and with grace. i eat at the qualls house once a week now, and she sends me home with love and food. i sit at a table that is not my own, and i sit with a family, not by myself. refreshing. i traipsed angrily through august, and stumbled through september. on october 1st, after morning prayer, i saw a sunrise and remembered its grace. i held onto the rising with less desperation than i did as a junior. but i saw it like noah knew the rainbow; as a sign of God's hope and faithfulness. there is so much grace in the sunrise, in painting the world with a golden light. the metaphor of rising is good to me these days.

i have hope again and i laugh a bit more. i call friends, but not as often as id like. i don't write much, though id like to. i do end up sending off some letters, but not as many as i say i will.

i turned 25 a week ago. and i was ready for it. 25 is good already, and i feel like i have been in it more than a month. i invited folks to my house, said bring what you'd like to have, and we laughed & ate and sat around a fire. I've got good folks, always and forever. i am going to make it this semester, and i will enjoy the freedom of no school in the next. the reality is though, i am too tired and not saying anything, but i made myself write because if i don't make myself, i won't. so cheers and goodnight, and keep putting up a good fight.

what i believe. most days.

i don't have the world figured out. i don't even know what makes up my soul. but i believe a few things pretty strongly.

i work for a summer camp/mission crew called Passport and i love it. it is a place to put your hand to the plow. it started over 20 years ago when 2 seminary students saw a need for a more missional camp. and they did something about it. they only hosted the camp for a week, but it took off and grew into a non-profit that employees me for 2 months of the year. and its something that I'm audibly proud of.

at the core of Passport is the willingness to engage the world as it is. not to fix to the world. but to love it. to be gentle when gentleness is required. and to be rough when some grit is needed. I'm a millennial in seminary (just like everyone else) and as much as i love it some days, sometimes i get tired of the voices. there are a lot of issues in the world. thats not lost on anybody. but with social media and the distance between any given computer screen, there are so many opinions. i love to read the articles with the best of them. I'm a thinker & it grinds my gears to get my hands on more information..

but its exhausting. 

we collect information, repost what we think is worthy, and then we pat ourselves on the back for "raising awareness" on another issue. that we don't touch with our bare hands. we stroke our keyboards with our finger tips and fulfill our duties as a well-informed citizens. but thats not enough.

i love Passport because it carves out a space for you to cut your hands on the edges of humanity. you develop callouses. you do the work that is asked, and you hope for the best. it could be painting houses, or feeding homeless folks, or packing up boxes and pallets of books to send to Africa. the people who plan the mission sites try to dress the most relevant wounds. they know that students coming through Passport are not paid professionals. they're high school students. but any group that comes through has some time and a few sets of hands. so we set the plows on the hard weathered ground, and we work through the dirt, tilling up whatever happens to be in the field that day.

if we're going to cultivate a garden that can sustain itself after we leave,  then we need to tend to what is there. in digging grooves, the plows breaks through more than just the literal world. maybe breaking up the soil is letting the kingdom of God break into earth, as it is in heaven. maybe its releasing whats underneath. if i learned anything this summer, its that Jesus is in the dirt as much as he is in the details.

this summer, over a 7 week period of time, we hosted a couple hundred students and their adult chaperones inside literal church walls. we asked them to clean up after themselves, and to serve each other while they were here. the whole thing is called M2 and it has changed my life. the entire session is run by 4 people, and by some grace laden act of God, it works. we ask students (and each other) to interact with the uncomfortable. we challenge them to view their experiences differently. to be molded by the story instead of thrashing around with bullheaded assumptions. we get our hands so dirty, and we usually have to forfeit the shower afterwards, because there just never seems to be enough time. we show up to worship with things moving around inside us, with dirt in every imaginable crease, lacquered on by sweat that has settled into our skin more than once over the course of the day. its messy in every sense of the word. but it is so good.

it is owning the role of the worker in the harvesting metaphor. we asked students to engage the bigger picture and to question the role that their hands have in the world. will they bind or wound? what do you do with homelessness? why is the kid in camp being such a punk? what if he can't help it? what if his angry consuming fits of rage are for attention, because he isn't getting it at home? what about the guy who shows up plastered to the soup kitchen? what about the billion other countries in the world that don't have books? or teachers? or medicine? what about those things?

i'm tired of reading opinions about what needs to change. letters to congress that we say we'll write, petitions that we should sign, but forget about until the next article comes across our Facebook feed. articles with skewed statistics that NOBODY ever checks. i'm tired of opinions and soft handed theology. I'm tired of opinions with no callouses.

as much as i want to hear your story and what you think about things, i'd rather you tell me about how you did something about it. i'd rather you get up at the end of the week for our m2 declarations and talk about how it made you so uncomfortable that the woman who you sat with at dinner stood in juxtaposition to the iPhone you had in your pocket. that your phone costs more than what she makes in a year. id rather hear about the time when you tried to read with a kid at literacy camp, but he was a runner, so he took off as soon as you sat down. id rather you tell me how boring it was to pack boxes, but then you realized that your hands were the last ones to touch those books before the boxes were opened in kenya. id rather you tell me that you don't know how to fix the big picture, but you were willing to try with the more local one.

thats what i believe. thats why i work for Passport. because regardless of your denomination, regardless of your church's theology, regardless of your background, you still have hands. and you still have time. it doesn't take very long to see needs in your own community if you're looking for them. or really, if you're just willing to look for them. we're all human. we're all coming from somewhere, going somewhere else, mostly on our way, give or take. and we can do stuff.

i don't know what the answer is to poverty and homelessness. i don't even know who my senator is, and as much as it makes me a poor US citizen, i don't care. id rather not waste my time arguing politics that i don't understand. that i can't control. the rules of the land are totally important, and for someone else, that is a worthy and enjoyable endeavor. it is not for me. but i see the guy on the corner asking for money. i don't carry cash, but i can carve out an hour and take him to dinner. i can walk home from the coffee shop and give my long sleeved shirt to the woman who is in front of me. even though she is lying. even though she is absolutely strung out. i can leave space for uncomfortable conversations when my team feels like they can't win this week. i can reconcile a moment when i spoke sharply to a friend. i can do those things.

we have to dig into this world with our bare hands. we can't use gloves for everything. even if they're just computer screens. sometimes we don't get the tools that could actually change things. we don't always have the right resources. but when jesus commissioned his disciples, he told them to take absolutely nothing. a few sentences later, they fed five thousand people. i'm okay with that. I'm okay with dressing wounds with only a few of the right bandages. i still think its better to try, and to not make it, then to just talk about it and walk away. to post our opinion on social media.

the atlanta portion of our M2 summer dealt with homelessness, and faulty systems that keep poverty in full swing. we partnered with Park Ave Baptist Church and jumped into the incredible ministries that they sustain all year round. they are folks committed to doing the work, and honoring whatever lies before them. at the end of each week, we host a community meal where we invite our students, people from the church, kids from literacy camp, and men from the soup kitchen. we feed whoever shows up and our students rotate through serving food. every week it is magic. students sit down with folks from every walk of life and they engage what might be foreign to them. it is a beautiful messy life changing grace.

today was the last day and id be lying if i said i wasn't sad about it. after we waved goodbye to our final group, we hugged & prayed one last time before our staff split up. i stayed at the church while my staff left for their respective means of transportation, hanging out for a few more days in this city. i took the MARTA to the aquarium and nestled into my spot in front of the whale shark tank to reflect on this crazy beautiful summer. on my walk back, i passed a homeless man who asked for money. i don't carry cash so i told him that and apologized. he said its alright, and thanked me anyways. i walked another 30 yards and prayed for him. i thought about all the things we ask our students to do, and couldn't keep walking. i turned back around and asked his name. Otee Johnson, he told me proudly. i asked him if he'd join me for dinner. he initially said no, but if i could maybe buy him dinner from the restaurant.. i asked again if he would join me, and i meant it. so he did. he was so gracious and kind and he told me his story. grew up in foster care. studied music and even knows how to play the violin. signed up for the army and happened to draw the short straw along the way. been homeless in atlanta for 30 years, and is okay with it. he told me his homelessness doesn't take away his humanity. he told me about how he prays, and how he had 129 asthma attacks, but he's still alive. he told me about his friends who have already passed. his long time girl friend died last year. she got really sick and ended up on life support and the family only waited 2 days to pull the plug. he grieved, but he knows that its what the family needed to do. he told me about making the newspaper because he used to push a woman around in a wheel chair every day. he had nasty sores on his hands, but he had hands that could help, and this woman didn't have anyone. nelson mandela came to atlanta, and the woman in the wheel chair wanted to see. so otee pushed her past the barricades, past the police officers, and she got to lay her eyes on the one and only nelson mandela. he made the newspaper for that day and his face glowed while he told me. (you can see part of the article here) i bought him a makers mark burger and a coke. i ate my bratwurst next to him and listened to everything he said. it was one of the most profound things I've experienced all summer. i know it wasn't "safe". but thats the real world.

i could hear some opinions.
"if he's homeless, he deserves to be there"
"he's probably a drug addict; you can't trust his stories"
"taking him out to lunch doesn't fix the issue. you're not helping anything"

but even in that, i still see your soft hands. i still you see you shying away from the things that you can do too.  i didn't fix anything for otee. i don't know that we ever fix anything for anyone. and thats not the point. the point is there are people in this world. there are problems in this world that don't have easy fixes. there are a lot of them. you could be overwhelmed, and no one would blame you. i don't blame you for being overwhelmed. but i do question your manicured hands. id love to see your fingernails with a little dirt beneath them. you can't fix it. i know that. but you can make an extra sandwich for lunch, and take it to someone. you can sit down with somebody you don't know. the Coca Cola commercials are cheesy, but they have an element of truth in them. you can buy an extra coke if you can afford a five dollar coffee every morning. you can put your hands in the dirt in your local plots. you can do these things. they matter, even if you never get to see the fruit.

working with Passport has changed my life. it is the thing that i was looking for in a faith community, but didn't really see. a place to put your hands and do work, even if you don't always enjoy it. even if its hard. its the real stuff. it started because someone saw a need, looked at their resources, and said, 'lets try and do something about this, even if it doesn't work.' and it grew. some efforts will fail, and weeds will over take the garden. but some things will grow.

may we at least be willing to do something about the things we talk about. and if we are not willing, may we fill the world with silence instead of our soft handed opinions.

meet Otee Johnson, my new Atlanta friend. here is to hoping that our paths cross again one day. 

some stories make you move slower than others.

today, in this moment, my staff is dead asleep & i am happily awake. for these things we give thanks.

camp is two weeks in, and already brimming with stories. a lot of them are riddled with grace and infused with mercy. and a few of them have been demanding in ways that have pushed us all to the thresholds. the first weekend off, i slept over 24 hours in a 48 hour period. I'm not even sure that i did that after surgery.

but its what i signed up for. its what i love. come, bring your weathered soul, bring your mess. we will sit and maybe walk. i will not fix, but i will pray. i will listen, mostly i think. and thats what the last 2 weeks were. maybe not directly. maybe it was just the overhearing of the messy parts, and the subsequent addressing of some of those messes.

i laid out my safety net along the way, leaned into those who love me. and we walked, with a ton of prayer because that is my response to not knowing what to do. which is often. and the messy parts were brought to light, where we talked about them and collaborated as a team. we reconciled as we went, instead of walking back to a heaping mountain of unaddressed things. and we did it together.

the community of grace is a funny thing. we walk & wound together. we cry together. and when we work together, it can be such magic. the difficulties did not end, but we learned together about how to choose courage over fear and lean into the new work of today. it is so very well.

such great and marvelous things.

today is a sunday and for the first time in a long time, i am home for that. i did not travel this weekend and jon myer picked up my shift from tonight, so i got to live into my sunday.

i don't know if i am nostalgic because of the books I'm reading, or if its just that time of year. but i am. nostalgic for the things of this year, and of years past. I'm reading a barbara brown taylor book again, because why not? I'm also reading a book about all things anglican, and i finished one a few days ago about being a humanitarian in afghanistan. they are books about navigating the heart, whether they intend it or not. 

in the last few weeks, i have finished up my classes and begun to settle into my summer. i am starting to believe that you learn the most about your heart when you are finishing up your term papers. my distracted heart leaked into my distracted mind, but there were assignments that needed a little tending. so i told my distractions that i would get to them after grades were done, i promised. and i did. i wrote down all the things that grabbed the hands of my mind and i saved them for a later day. about a week ago, i was talking to my friend bri about "free writing". just starting somewhere with no goals in mind but to write and to empty out the flooded cavern between your ears. how we both could benefit from doing it more, but hadn't done it in a while. one night i filled a sheet of computer paper with everything that came to mind. i took pauses and sipped my drink, letting my thoughts gather up the courage to be seen. it is funny to me how the writing resembles a conversation. with who, i am not sure. but it does seem that the words were begging an audience, even if it was just me. i suppose they were probably for me, but no matter. i wrote them, and penned them on a blank page. it was pretty liberating. i am learning in life these days, that maturity has a lot more to do with listening than telling. so i listened to all the things that i was thinking, and instead of using logic to drive them away, i let them sit in my company. i paid attention to what i have wanted to say for so long. and on the third day, there was healing and reconciliation, and God saw that it was good.

some times in life, all the things that you have worked so hard to earn end up walking away anyways. some times they are ugly on their way out, though some times they are kind and sad. i gathered up all the lost things and the remnants and i made a memorial. i stood by the grave with my memories and allowed them all to say a word. some paid homage, and some just wept. i lit a candle for good measure and i sat on my porch, watching the world on its way. some days, you need to lay things to rest. but some times you have to wait until they are ready. and my things were ready. i don't think it is wise to dwell in your past. i know that i do that some times. but i also knowing that healing doesn't occur in metered time.

back in the day when i lost a lot of things, i lost a lot of myself too. i saw myself as too damaged for repair, so i let go of all the things i used to hold close to my heart. i used to call it a season of deconstruction, but i think it was a season of destruction and disintegration too. the latter is probably more accurate, because the former seems to imply a sort of method. there was no method at the time, just muted madness. and in some ways, maybe not even muted. i read my old journals from that season and i sighed out compassionate noises, because i ached for that time. since school has ended, i have tried to give myself a better chance at those old things. i have tried to listen, and to bring back the things that were mine. the things that make up who i am. i think some of the things have been following me, waiting for me to gather them into my arms and reclaim them. so i am trying to turn around and face them. to treat them with loving kindness in the same way i treat all the young children in this community.

 i used to take notes on how to live, feverishly scribbling down 'how-to' moments, so that i would know how to act appropriately again, since i had clearly lost that ability. since i was clearly defective. i stored them in a filing cabinet in my mind and pulled them out when i was in uncharted territory. i was always ready. and always exhausted. that year, after the embers of my seared foundation had turned into a smoldering pile, i looked at my marred hands and let go. i assumed that the mess in my life was solely my fault, because i had no other way to wrap my mind around that tragedy. i cared nothing for the texts of Job because i had not lost like Job had. or at least i told myself that. God had already proved his point to Satan, he did not need me to do it again. i did not tend the fire nor re-stoke the flames. i didn't even attempt to rebuild. i wept and walked away, making promises in the concrete that now filled my heart. never again little mocking bird, never again. i would stop trusting my own mind, though i would not lean into the Lord's understanding either. so i walked along for a good 3 years. 

i did good things in that time, and i laughed a lot of genuine laughter. i made friends and i was decidedly loved. not all was lost in those three years, but some was lost. i could tell my friends that i still felt a little left over crazy, and most would assure me that i was not crazy. but my good friends, the close ones; the ones who have walked across that chasm themselves, they would listen. and point me back to the source of good things. in remembrance and honor. they would walk with me, or at least near me. it seems that for some time i have walked two paths at the same time. or maybe held a balloon in my hands, filled with the things that scared me, only partially committing to the paths beneath my feet. i walked towards integrity and wholeness but i still had a balloon around my wrist, pulling me in a different direction. but recently, i got to deflate that balloon a little bit. i got to take it off for a moment and explore the wilderness around me. i got to grieve some wonderful things that will never happen and grieve some really incredible things that did happen. cause life works with both. 

at church this morning, our deacon read a poem by Andrew King called And We in You. there is a line that says,

"as grief is in the loving,

and loving in the grief,

as belief is in the hope,

and hope in the belief"

i heard it loudly. the rest of the poem is wonderful too. much of it is to say that we cannot separate such things. that all of the grief and love work in tandem. and some times, to love yourself is to grieve yourself. until you accept that both live within your very bones, you will rail against that which cannot be separated from you. it is grafted into your being. sewn together in the sinews and joints. inescapably yours. and for that we must give thanks. i am reclaiming. admitting my wrestling and owning my life. i guess i say that a lot, and i do mean it every time. but this time is different. all of the authors whom i value most, all write from the core of their being. their insights were gained by leaning into the messes they made. they stopped running because running was no longer an option. i don't think it is one for me either. they wrote the things that tended to their battered and tired hearts. my busyness is no better than drinking, which i have such strict rules concerning. the goal is the same. i am no better than that which was wounding to begin with. and it is mine. i am listening to my heart as intently as i can because i have the space to do it. and i am recounting all of the things that have been gentle to my little heart. and i am choosing to use that word instead of scoffing it away.

last night after work, justin and i grabbed some canvases and acrylic paint. i have never painted in acrylics, and i think the last time i painted with anything, it was water color and it was some time in elementary school. we said cheers and got our hands messy. smeared colors across whatever was beneath us. with no aim in mind. just to let things go where they were already going. it was magic. i painted two boards. one is a board that naively blends colors from yellow to a deep blue. i might add to it later. the other one interesting. it is made with dark backgrounds and a figure that seems to have its fists in the sky. but the way the figure stands, you cannot tell which way it is facing. either direction means that it is using all of its core muscles to hold it up. it is not quite stable. you cannot tell if it is triumph or defeat. winning or losing. good or evil. justin smirked at the ambiguity because like me, he believes in art therapy. we stayed in the studio till late and enjoyed the last of whatever was in our cups, walking past the graveyard in each others company, instead of by ourselves like we might do on the walk home any other night. this morning he came with me to church, as did danielle. we discussed pam's sermon over lunch and came home to a day of netflix. took a nap in the living room again. cooked together and cleaned the house. i was home. i am not good at being home, but today i was home. i have been letting my heart rest in it like i belong. because i have done the doable things to make something a home. and now it is time to rest there, as it has been for a while. simply because i live there.

learning to walk in your own skin is powerful. it allows you to be you in a way that nothing else can reproduce. i love it. i hope that as i get older, i will always be allowed to invest as other have invested in me. guiding me along new routes, and letting me wander when it was time to wander. i am grateful for the hearts and hands that have held my life. in pieces or in wholeness. i think everyone in the world is looking for a place to belong. a place to feel like home. some people get it right out the gates, and they live into it. some people don't get it till they make it. and some others won't see it until they sink down into the work that they have already done; that has already been done for them. in my grooves, i am learning to find home. i am letting my caverns become familiar. i am their guardian and it would do me well to know their lay. to intimately know their paths. because they are mine and they are home. this is my soul's address. i am learning to love again, like that mat kearney song says. i am learning to live in the light as He is in the light. and learning to walk in the dark like others have walked in the dark. here is to guidance, guides, guiding and being guided. here is to the uncharted and the never before seen. trust the newness and let it befriend you, like it has anxiously been waiting to do. 

ben howard has a song called Under the Same Sun and its just as good as everything else he has done. in an interview recently, someone asked what he was thinking about while he played on stage. he said that he tried to stand in front of the thing that the song was about. he said the bigger the crowd, the more he draws into himself, remaining both distant and wholly vulnerable. he sits in front of the memory that spurred him into writing an ink marked melody. he said it takes you to some trippy places, along a weird path. as if we are meant to honor those things that we remember. in Under the Same Son, the lyrics are simple. 

"will you be there when the day is done will you be there under the same sun?"

to the best of my abilities and with God's help, amen. 

hey kindness, i see you. i welcome you & i am grateful that you are around.

so much kindness. learning it, living it, and leaving things to it. because kindness is as much a subject as it is an object. it is doer, and it is done. ive been learning kindness and listening over effort and telling. both have their places, but kindness wins this round.

reflections on easter

if silence took up space on a page, id have years of thoughts for you. i don't know if its a bad thing.

i guess this post is in some ways about death, but it is also about valleys and walking and trying again, too. if i finish it at least. 

my friend brianna recently lost her dad to an ugly fight with lou gherigs. nobody ever makes it out alive, but we always hope that the transition isn't so ugly. so brutal. but this time it was.

bri and i met because were both athletes who saw the same trainer, sometimes during the same hours. we had a hebrew class together where we translated while in slings, visible or otherwise. and then i worked at the coffee shop, where she retrained me and we laughed about things. there were a couple  other odd intersections, but i now think of them as less odd, and more woven. she is a fantastic human and one of my favorite people. I'm so grateful that we're friends. so so so grateful. God is intentional and i don't really ever know what he's doing, but he is surely up to something, and I'm willing to be its usually something redemptive. something good.

so anyways, we've become quite close friends, via choice and lots of God-proddings. i guess in my life, i don't really carry much certainty, which might be a recent thing, but who knows. one of the only things I've never really questioned though, is the presence of good friends in my life. close friends, and good friends have always been consistent, whether i was able to connect with them or not. even in crappy seasons. especially in crappy seasons. i had a rough year one time and it relationally kicked the shit out of me. so i absorbed all these fears that multiplied my uncertainties. maybe they just revealed my doubts, I'm not sure yet. but anyways, even with all of that, I've never questioned the presence of my good friends, seasonal or long term.

i have really good friends. like incredible, make-me-thank-God-a-million-times-throughout-the-day incredible. and I'm learning to live there, like they're really my friends, like its all real. but part of the realness is the tragedy of life. tragedy seems like such a strong word, but its fair sometimes, and for more than just rhetoric. some of my friends have been dealt rough hands, which is a metaphor that works on both levels. sickness and grief have settled in like an inexplicable plague. it is so sad. but it is also real, and you can't compartmentalize reality.

bri's dad passed 3 weeks ago today. lou gherigs is the disease that my parents shake their heads at. my folks work in the medical business. mom is with the babies, and dad is with the cancer folks. both ends of the spectrum. they have some atypical views on treatments and sickness, but lou gherigs is the one that gets them both. i was talking to my mom about it before he passed and she cried on the phone a little bit. its sad. in some anne lamott book that i read recently, she mentioned something about how as we age, the body starts to sag, as if it knows a secret that we can only begin to understand; that our bodies will let go, and soon enough we will too. we will finally learn what our bodies already know. maybe bodies are a metaphor for the rest of life.

Ted tried everything known to man, and some things known only to God too. and his body still failed. the people who loved him knew about it. the people closest to him saw it. there is a book called "love is a mixtape" and it is wonderful and sad. the writer talks about how heart-shaped box is a song about love, and how helpless you are when it comes to the people you love. how you can't really fix anything for them and you can't really protect them, even though you want to so badly, so much that you think you might burst. rob sheffield is brilliant. just read the book. i think the people who loved Ted wanted to protect him. maybe differently. maybe they wanted him to face things differently, but i don't think anyone who loved him wished for the manner of death that he experienced. i think the people who knew him best knew too much about the gospel and forgiveness for that sort of thing. maybe they didn't, but they strike me as that sort of crowd.

he passed away around 10am with his family in the room. the precise moment was nearly unknowable, but i don't know if that matters as much as having people present does. people holding each others hands and his, praying, walking alongside as much as time and capacity would permit. doing the best anyone could, with all the resources anyone had.

bri lives a state away, but she is still connected to this town. as soon as we found out, everyone started making plans, and asking questions, because sometimes you just go. i packed my bags, contacted professors, and cleared my work schedule. my bosses were kind enough to let me leave. there are few things in life that i would lose my job over, but this would have been one of them if they hadn't let me go. which is irrelevant cause they did.

i made my way over and showed up. i told jenna that my goal was the intersection between least stressful and most helpful. stacie & marlowe came too, and we all did whatever was doable. even if it was just a coffee run, or entertaining a relative who needed to tell someone a story. at night, we gathered together and shared our own, because laughter is healthy and stories are connective. it will always be funny that stacie said her arm was broken when we hit a dear on the way to the beach at 2am. the fur in the wheel well will always merit clapping, whooping, laughter. those things are important, and maybe even more so in the face of a funeral. bri was brave and strong. she was loved too, which was obvious when we all watched.

the funeral was beautiful and well done. his memory was well preserved, and his personhood was honored. death is a weird, weird little thing. maybe a weird big thing, since it is THE thing. and when you are in the christian faith, it is the turning point thing, which follows rising action, right on up to climax, which is the resurrection. so its weird, but its also unbelievably important. i have a friend who says death is the thing that makes her question whether any of this life is real. i wonder sometimes if death is the thing that makes me think that it IS real. seeing someone you awkwardly hugged while dashing into the house to get the world's greatest chocolate milk on your way out of town, with eyes now permanently closed is weird. and hard. but the finality of things makes them feel real to me. maybe more than feel, maybe finality MAKES it real. all of the memories, the conversations, the words, the times, all of them are so real. and they are branded into the people who remember them, because death makes you remember.

remember is my favorite word in hebrew. it is "za-char", and it carries the connotation of "realizing something in actuality", like reliving. it is an important word to me, and it has been since i learned it. death makes you remember. even if it is not a physical death, and it is just the death of your previous self, or the death of your preconceived notions, or more maturely, the death of your own identity. but it does make you remember. with longing, hatred, or more commonly, grief. in a letter, bri said that her favorite word in the bible was redemption. i like that word a lot too. she talked about as a second chance, but more so, as a 'becoming-whole-like-we-were-meant-to-be' thing. some things get redeemed on this side of reality and some don't. but redemption is a real thing. and thats good for all of us.

at some point the other day, i started playing with words, deconstructing them and reconstructing them. REmember, REdemption, REconcilation, REal. so many 'RE' prefixes. in a letter to someone, or an email, RE means reply. in english, the prefix often means to do again. a response. so remembering is membering again. a member is a part of a whole, or a whole itself. it is also related to personhood. its almost like remembering is putting the person back together. i love that so much. redemption is the noun form of redeem. so RE, again + deem, which is to consider, believe, or hold. it is a word used in regard to opinions, but also holding someone in high esteem. to deem someone worthy. so an aspect of redemption might be, holding something again. and depending on who you ask, holding something again might be the greatest gift. it might mean considering something as worthy of remembrance. even in the word 'real'. in latin, al is inclusive meaning, all. so when you reference a work by multiple authors, you say, 'et al'. so the world, in its reality, is the response to all. maybe that is what makes something REal. your response to the 'all'. which makes your response the most real of all in some ways.

these are the things i thought about over easter. i like easter a lot, and for many reasons. for one, if it didn't exist, my degrees would be about things like unicorns and other likely-non-existent creatures, and that would feel silly and annoying. i really like easter because it says we can have a second chance at things. that things as they are might not be how they seem, and even if they are how they seem, they probably won't stay that way. things can change. we can respond differently. God did. Jesus did. the people did. we can respond to new things and we can even respond differently to old things. thats the hope in resurrection. the idea that it is finished, but in many ways, it is not quite finished. or maybe you are not quite finished. and you are somehow connected to the thing that set all of this in motion.

i got back from TN and thought so much about connections. partially because my mind works in concepts, not details, so i am constantly seeking out patterns. i like to compartmentalize, which is normal. but the thing is, it doesn't really work that well. i tried to respectfully separate my experience from bri's because i wanted to honor her experience. taking someone else's pain and making it your own is not always compassion. sometimes it is just transferred chaos, and i did not want to belittle all of the things that she and her community were walking through. but my body wouldn't let me separate it. i had a physical response to grief that wasn't totally mine. but i realized that it wasn't wholly separate either. i walked through some of bri's valley with her. and sometimes, i just sat on the dock while she was submerged. you can't walk through every part of the valley when its not your own. sometimes waiting out in the dark is helpful while someone else is wading out in the muck. it was not my grief, and yet i am still connected to it. because i have, and will always have good friends. that is God's grace in my life. that people will remain friends and walk through each others valleys together. that we will stumble together. but that we will keep walking alongside each other too. i bear the grief differently, and i will never bear all of it, because it is not mine. but some of it will drift into my atmosphere and i will gladly welcome its interruption. grief is never clean. not for the individuals directly affected. it is sticky in the sense that it latches on to whoever is around. and if you are fortunate enough to be allowed there, it will latch on to you too. that is the grace of soul friends. that we can be connected and we can walk with each other, across states and times. that the Lord grants a connected kindness in friendship. he gives us relationships and says okay, take care of each other, you probably won't do it right the whole time, but try for each other. and we do. we try. we show up and offer whatever we have, because love sees the other person, and sometimes it tries to sacrifice. we can't fix, but sometimes we can walk, and sometimes that is enough. 

real.

i went to open mic night & wrote a few letters before getting coffee with a friend. the time was good, and as i walked out, i talked to jon the barista.

he told me that he thought he just got scammed by the fidgety woman who begged for food. jon & i probably agree on a lot of things and probably disagree on a few too. he's a good guy & a good man. the woman had a few things going on that seemed like someone who was strung out, but jon & i can be bleeding hearts sometimes.

i walked out the door & started my walk home. its not far & the weather was nice tonight, so no major complaints. the same woman was unwrapping her sandwich and muffin, and once i walked by, she started to act frantic & sniffled. i continued walking and then i thought about all the crappy Facebook posts from people who had a thousand opinions and soft hands. my generation (and maybe more.. maybe its an evangelical thing, or maybe its a cultural sensationalism thing. i don't know, I'm not that wise) is often guilty of having opinions and talking about Jesus, but not many people get their hands dirty. the harvest is plenty but the workers are few. if this commentary was set in our own time, i think it would include a lot of people standing on the fence, chirping about how they would use different gloves, or how this company is sustainable and has better shovels. but no dirty hands.

last year, i was sitting in my house & i heard a crashing sound near the road. i have great hearing unfortunately, so i hear everything. i walked out of my house, furrowed brow & looked down the road. i didn't see anything. but i knew what i heard. i walked back inside & prayed for the sound. i guess i was afraid to walk down, or thought myself too crazy to have really heard that noise. about 20 minutes later, i went to check the mail, and instead there was an ambulance, and no mailbox. someone had driven their car into the ditch and crashed. shattered their window. it was a mother and her son. i think they were okay, or at least the paramedic said so. i had nothing to offer, and my presence was negligible so i walked back to my house, pretty bothered by my choices. i knew what i heard, and didn't look any further. i made sure that i could say with confidence, "i did all for that which i was able to see. anything more is not my responsibility". and i even prayed, because i listened in my evangelical services. but that deceptive self-comfort wasn't enough. had i actually walked down to the end of my drive way, i don't know that anything would have gone differently. at best, i would have called 911 & probably held someone's hand. who knows. i wouldn't have saved anyone, and i don't have a medical back ground. though my roommate was home & she was a nurse, so maybe. i replayed it in my head a lot. praying while i looked around was more comfortable. but it was a crappy response. i decided i wasn't going to do that again. prayer is great & it moves mountains. we can't address every need & fix everything. but that doesn't give me a pass on actually doing something.

so tonight, i walked by this woman, and i prayed. and in my head, i heard a crash, so i turned around. i said, 'are you okay?' she said, 'no & I'm beat up and have nowhere to go. i have no one'. she was crying. I'm a bleeding heart. jon gave her a drink & a sandwich. so i asked how i could help. she started to tell me a story about her boyfriend who beat her, how the shelters were all closed (mind you, there is no shelter in boiling springs. the nearest one is 10 miles away). my myers-briggs changes daily but the only constant letter is my N. i am intuitive, though intentionally ignorant more often than not. i had the feeling that she was lying to me. she asked me for a couple dollars for cereal for her children since her husband kicked her out, so they could have food in the morning. how her husband kept driving by, and there he went. and how she has nobody. how she was so cold. and she fidgeted the whole time. i wanted to believe that her piercings didn't fall into stereotyping. i wanted to not be a judgmental seminary asshole and make sure i heard what she was saying. but what she was saying didn't add up.

i said i would walk with her, part of the way home. she left the sandwich and the muffin, muttering that she lost her appetite. she told jon that she hadn't eaten anything all day and that all she wanted was a frappe. i asked her about herself, and she talked about being beaten and how she had no one. but maybe shelley would answer. shelley would be awake. so we walked. i had my passport long sleeved shirt on cause its my favorite. its soft & well worn. but she was cold. and i gave her the shirt and walked. she was lying to me and trying to get anything she could. pretended to be subtle, but was really just hustling me. i set my boundaries. she was digging for a couple dollars, a ride home, a place to sleep. i didn't have my car with me, and i live with other people. i hate that the paradigm for life doesn't let me give her a roof, but it just doesn't. we started to walk down to her house, even though the street she named doesn't exist. i drained my gas tank in this town so i know where the roads are. i certainly know their names. we agreed to walk to hardees, then it changed to mcdonalds. she kept telling me to walk home. the same way a user doesn't want you to see where they're going. so i walked with her to mcdonalds, even though the door was locked.

the things she said were incoherent because they were lies. she contradicted herself several times in our short conversations. we were together for maybe 15 minutes. if i would have offered any more, she would have taken it and shortly discarded it. i observed and in my attempt at being neutral, i still think she was strung out. thats what my evidence said.

we parted ways and i waved goodbye to gina and my passport shirt. it was on backwards, which made the logo bigger. i thought about all of the things i learned at passport. to embrace the discomfort. because if you're getting your hands dirty, you can't avoid it. what do you do when you mission script is about imagining homelessness, trying to fathom that which you cannot relate to, only to have randy the homeless guy in the back, high as kite, sitting next to you between your turns on stage? what do you do when he comes by every week, knowing that you just got a paycheck, knowing that he hustles everyone, and shoots for the bleeding heart folks? thats real. randy was high when someone pointed to the sanctuary where he could find me. he sat in the back row with me. he stood up while we sang worship, looking around, trying to interject for another 10 dollar bill. it takes a lot to make me uncomfortable. i can hang with the best of them and deal with the worst of them. it is unusual for me to be challenged by the messiness of any given situation, but i was. i couldnt avoid looking at randy while i read the script, wondering what he thought, if he was even thinking about it at all. he didn't have to imagine anything because he lived it. which is probably why he was high in the first place. what do you do with that?

but tonight her name was gina, not randy. even in this small town, ill probably never see her again. i don't know that any of what she said was true. in some ways, a lot of it probably was, though perhaps not in the ways that she meant. i walked back into the coffee shop and some high schoolers were sitting outside. they asked me if she was okay, and what was going on. i told them, 'you know, honestly? i think she was lying. i think she was strung out on something, and got lost. but i don't know, I'm going to walk home in a few minutes and in get into my warm bed, where ill probably be safe. i don't think the same is true for her.' we talked a little more, processed a bit. gina asked one of them for a lighter earlier. it didn't shock me. but they got it.

i walked inside and talked to jon. i told him that i think i was scammed too, but we both knew it in the present tense when it was happening. we knew that she was lying. but we came out with similar conclusions. we were both going home. he might have given her all the money from his tip jar, but he would have another shift soon. she would probably use the money for something that wasn't food. she probably doesn't have daughters who need a couple dollars for cereal. who knows, she might. i don't know. she said so many things that make hearts bleed. that obligated me to do something. and she did it in a way that told me she's done it before.

but what do you do? i don't think you walk by praying. i think jesus probably ministered to a lot of people who were never going to change. i think he knew that most people would play face to get what they wanted, and move on. the crowd at the cross disappeared pretty quickly when they didn't get what they wanted. and accessibility. jesus made paths of access for people who weren't allowed in. i don't know that i showed her the way to anything. i walked with her to mcdonalds, but i didn't give her what she wanted. i know i didn't give her what she needed cause i can't. i don't think gina will suddenly go to church after this wildly profound experience where a holy and loving, compassionate young seminary student gave the shirt off of her humble righteous back. did i mention the burning bush that showed up in this epic made for tv scene? i didn't? oh right, that never happened. because thats all garbage. we're reckless and foolish to believe that we know otherwise. maybe I'm a pessimist. i know that addiction doesn't change with a tshirt, long sleeved or otherwise. God will do what God is doing. all that was asked of me was to get my hands dirty.

i hope that i did.

i go to seek a great perhaps.

i go to seek a great perhaps. 

those words were penned by francois rabelais. i found them in a john green book & like many others, i fell in love with the words. the same way you fall in love, slowly & all at once. (another line from the same book)

i go to seek a great perhaps. february was a full month again. i saw good & i saw frustrating. i held rest & exhaustion. i grew into my own skin & i rattled with angst in the confines of my mind. and it was okay.

im goal oriented & i want to be healthy. i think that if you have the choice to change things that are important, things that will matter in the long run, then you should. you should try. and sometimes, that is great. and equally, sometimes it is terrible. sometimes it is a terrible use of energy. sometimes you sit in front of a listening human, who parrots back to you all the places where you are working so hard to be healthier... and you finally feel your own exhaustion. sometimes it is so worth it.

 i am 24 now & can see the fruits of my work. i can feel where the Lord repaired some brokenness and i can breathe again. breathe better & more fully. but sometimes i find that my efforts have simply made me more tired. in my desperations, i forget to weep when i need to weep for the un-healed-not-yet-redeemed parts. i forget to laugh fully because i need the rest instead. i think we, as mostly upright (physically, not spiritually) human being are capable of unimaginable feats. i think that part of our innate indefinable humanity is the possibility of achieving more, or surviving better. i think we blame circumstance a lot, when more often than not, it is our own hands that shoveled out the ditch in front of us. we didn't trip on some rock that was haphazardly (or intentionally) left in our paths, we tripped over the stone we threw in our frustrations. we dig our own graves & write our own sentences sometimes. not all the time. but often.

and when you are someone who is mindful of when her hand is blistered from shoveling, or your devote time to looking at the path ahead for your own rocks, it becomes difficult to have sympathy. or empathy. because everyone starts griping about their circumstances, raising tiny balled up fists to the sky in anger at the God who gave his own breath. and you can see their life & see that the circumstances, though undoubtedly crafted & created by the good Lord, were influenced by their hands. by our hands. by human hands. i don't think that belittles the power of God. i don't think it means God has any less say in our ongoings. or any less power. but i think we forget to look in the mirror sometimes. your hands, my hands, our hands. they are red sometimes. they are dirty and messy. they have clearly felt the weight of an axe, and hewn the trees that now obstruct the way. they have clearly spent time shoveling dirt out of ditches. thats where the callouses come from sometimes, and the splinters. they are my hands too.

but i thought about all these things, and shared them with someone named Bentley, who has heaps of wisdom in her grey hairs. she heard the things i said, and showed them to me, and i felt my own tiredness. sometimes it is good & wise & better to look the splinters in your hands, and say, 'okay God, this is a little bit on me. i did this. i made it, and broke it. you didn't do this to me'. but sometimes, it gets easier and easier to assume that it was always you. you broke all of the things all of the times in all of the pieces. and the fractured shards in your palms are the work of your own hands. but that too is fallacy. sometimes your hands were in your pockets, innocent of the red. sometimes your hands were in someone else's, and they didn't touch the shovel. when you know that responsibility & genuine acceptance are the keys to growth & maturity, it is easy to want more. to try & absorb all of the broken things, to call them your own, and to maximize growth. this is called being controlling it is not the same thing as the fruit of the spirit. but it is easy.

so the great perhaps. when Bentley and i talk, i remember all of the 'perhaps-es". i remember that perhaps, it is better to shake your fist at the sky, even if its your fault that your life splintered the way it did. perhaps everyone else is crazy & just because everyone has a problem with bob, doesn't mean bob is necessarily the problem. bob just might be the most honest about what the problems are when nobody wants to hear about them. perhaps the things that you fight to make healthy, will never be healthy, no matter how hard you try. perhaps you are actually good, with dents. instead of being mottled with the illusion of good. or perhaps you are terrible and your 'good' only comes in brief moments.  maybe the not-okay can be okay. it can be a new okay, and an okay-for-now. perhaps the best you can do is not the ideal, but "the next right thing". perhaps life is more breathing and 'next right things' than fighting for first time right things. maybe the disappointments are supposed to be louder than the accomplishments. maybe the absence is more nurturing than the presence. maybe its not all lost. but maybe it won't be redeemed either. maybe it just is.

so i go to seek a great perhaps. i want to explore the limits of my own possibilities. i want to know the Better More. the Really Real. i want to touch all the things and know why the fire, what's the word, burns. to be part of your world & mine. to be part of this world that we share, where we all participate. with our dents. where our insufficient/overstimulating chemicals leap across disjointed synapses, trying to make sense of the things we are sensing. which is not always the same is feeling. but neither is more real than the other. because reality is not rigid. your brain can make you things some silly things.

so let us seek the great perhaps. in our mania, let us wake with the sunrise on a porch at disney, instead of an air conditioned bed. in our highs, let us celebrate. in our lows, let us grieve, for grief is great. sometimes it is worth letting go of the healthier More in exchange for the living breathing kicking thing that is your own life.

do you know what your finger tips look like, or where they end? are your hands mangled from too many sports and too much play? are your fingers crooked & scarred? they're yours. take good care of them. be gentle with them when you jam them, or catch them in a car door. be gentle with yourself. wrestle for the rest in the great perhaps.

the archaic process of printing baseball tickets.

i went swimming the other night for the first time in a while. i signed up for a half-marathon & i am trying again. i swim sometimes because it is good for me, but also because it feels wonderful. the fluidity of water feels almost blissful against your skin. almost magic. almost home. i do not understand it, but i love it. there was only one other swimmer at the pool and if my memory serves, his name is patrick. he is blind & deaf. he is astounding to me. he has an interpreter who helps him in class. he puts his hand to her hands and reads every nuanced movement. he is astounding. between leisure laps, i listened to the quiet pool. the life guard was studying so there wasn't any music playing. patrick swam 2 lanes down & i just watched, because i am fortunate enough to do that. i dont know much about swimming, but i know that lines are important. your strokes should keep you in a line, utilizing your own energy to provide the best possible output. the more crooked your path & the less rhythmically in-tune your stroke, the slower & more labored your lap. so i watched this helen-keller-esque 20 year old swim. with perfect lines. and perfect rhythm. no stroke out of place.

he is blind & deaf. 

i think he has maybe slight hearing, or a sliver of vision. enough for someone to argue, "oh well he's not really.." as if it is any less impressive. the kid cant see or hear, and can swim in a straight line.

i wondered for a while how he does it. maybe he can see a little bit & can manage the thick black line across the floor of the pool. maybe he can hear the water lapping the lane ropes, or the gutter. maybe. but i bet he can just feel it. logan used to comment that i shouldve tried swimming when i was younger because i can feel how my stroke should look without anyone saying anything. i can feel the water when im swimming poorly, and my strokes are no longer aligned. i can feel it when im not swimming clean. so i tried swimming with my eyes closed.

 i hit the lane rope in 3 strokes.

i tried to visualize swimming in a straight line, utilizing prophetic muscle memory. i mirrored strokes to keep my form locked & my core strong. not any more successful. 

patrick blind and deaf. he cant see when he's moving crooked. but he can feel it. the guy cant hear & cant see, but he can swim. he is astounding. he has minimal external data to wield his life. at first, i thought how terrifying it might be. and maybe it is, i do not know. but how incredible is patrick. and how resilient. how many times did he have to get in the pool with someone to learn how to swim. how many times did he hit his head on the wall? how exhilarating was it when he kicked off the first time? did it feel like flying? were the topical nerves in his skin going ballistic with joy? was it freedom? i think so. 

i like to start from the block because it is fastest i can move. i am a half decent swimmer, but i cant crank out race speeds. i can jump though. i can throw myself pretty far. for the half second before i hit the water, i am alive. it doesnt stop when i break the surface. i wear my hair down when i swim sometimes because the water gives you that perpetual state of wind blown hair. assuming you can swim for that long of course. before logan & i broke up, he taught me how to utilize the dolphin kick. i enjoyed calling it the pelvic thrust but i guess thats not the technical term. i can fly for 20 yards, give or take. i dont have to break the surface till then because my lungs are clean & full. 

i wonder if that is why patrick swims. because the freedom was worth the fight. getting back up was worth the fall. he cant really listen with his ears, but i bet his skin could tell a hundred stories with what it knows. i bet swimming between the world of breathing & not is incredible because for him, there is no repetitive black line. there are no flags to mark the final breath. the concrete at the bottom adds nothing to the monotony, because for him there is no monotony. there is familiarity. there is feeling the water move over & around your skin. there is a splash from each stroke. try to imagine swimming in general, and try to imagine it without sight or sound.

it is freedom. it is bliss. it is magic. it is home.