last answers?

something new

2010-08-26T07:20:00.000-05:00

2010-08-09T08:23:00.005-05:00

“The long silences need to be loved, perhaps
more than the words
which arrive
to describe them
in time.” Franz wright (“home remedy”)

***

To only read what he has written seems like cheating. So I begin in the middle. I do not have the words now, yet at the moment I wonder if digging out from under strange grief and the impossible heaviness of fear could bring me closer to them.
He told me I should be an archeologist. I think I would like this science--it does remind me of counseling, of storytelling. Knowing there are things that tell some kind of tale buried under the years of sediment.

When you go digging, what will you find? Something that changes everything about what we thought of these now landscapes; that reminds us that even when memory fails, there are traces, there are tangible things left behind.

My friend tells me that whale bones and fossilized roots of mandrake trees were found in the Sahara. Buried under layers of dirt and sand, sitting in their long silence and waiting to be discovered, for the words of their story to be found. Maybe this is near where Leah and Rachel were in love with the same man, and used the love tree to conceive children. A legacy of twelve sons, real people, becoming twelve tribes--a whole nation. Carbon imprints don’t tell all that went on in that family.

***

Night sitting outside on our small patch of lawn behind the apartment building. Closed in by the tall multi-families. Walls of brick on one side, parking lot and the metro line on the other. We take a six foot diameter circle of the freshly mowed grass and live us a summer night. Brownies and cans of PBR.

The story of our time together and conversation, unless I record it here, now, lives only in memory. And I doubt that someone would wonder, when they dig up that landfill and find those few aluminum cans among hundreds of thousands, about our night under the invisible stars reading poetry, and talking about archaeology, and whale bones and mandrake roots that someone found in the middle of the desert.

A place to start: write down some bits and pieces and tell, in between the long silences, a moment of what has been lived.

2010-06-28T11:43:00.000-05:00

Some People
by Wislawa Szymborska
Translated by Joanna Trzeciak

Some people fleeing some other people.
In some country under the sun
and some clouds.

They leave behind some of their everything,
sown fields, some chickens, dogs,
mirrors in which fire now sees itself reflected.

On their backs are pitchers and bundles,
the emptier, the heavier from one day to the next.

Taking place stealthily is somebody's stopping,
and in the commotion, somebody's bread somebody's snatching
and a dead child somebody's shaking.

In front of them some still not the right way,
nor the bridge that should be
over a river strangely rosy.
Around them, some gunfire, at times closer, at times farther off,
and, above, a plane circling somewhat.

Some invisibility would come in handy,
some grayish stoniness,
or even better, non-being
for a little or a long while.

Something else is yet to happen, only where and what?
Someone will head toward them, only when and who,
in how many shapes and with what intentions?
Given a choice,
maybe he will choose not to be the enemy and
leave them with some kind of life.

unexpected: October 29, 2009

2010-06-28T11:35:00.000-05:00

Rain for weeks on end, it seems. Month of grays. Long days of work, running late late perpetually late. Trudge up familiar stairs and open the door: glowy dining room, mischievous smiling faces. Joyful greetings for a raining Wednesday night.
The table top holds a clutter of laptops, unsteady stacks of books books, family pictures, mini candy bars, bowls of popcorn, mugs of coffee and star crunches.

Two watch the World Series in the next room, giggling when the commentator says that one of the players "drips with confidence." We laugh at their laughing, start to compose haiku. It doesn't get far. Later, Halloween costumes are being invented and crafted.

Drive home late, it continues to rain. The trees shimmer, there is an eerie fog over the city tonight.

Some things I remember. Some things I forget.

where have you been all my life?

2010-06-10T16:05:00.004-05:00

Thirst
Mary Oliver

Another morning and I wake with the thirst
for the goodness I do not have. I walk
out to the pond and all the way God has
given us such beautiful lessons. Oh Lord,
I was never a quick scholar but sulked
and hunched over my books past the hour
and the bell; grant me, in your
mercy, a little more time. Love for the
earth and love for you are having such a
long conversation in my heart. Who
knows what will finally happen or
where I will be sent, yet already I have
given a great many things away, expecting
to be told to pack nothing, except the
prayers which, with this thirst, I am
slowly learning.

four

2009-10-24T11:35:00.004-05:00

1. "...wake up this morning.
Purple sky slowly turning golden,
distant elms so orange you'd swear they're burning."
cowboy junkies

2.Mindful-Mary Oliver

Every day
I see or hear
something
that more or less

kills me
with delight,
that leaves me
like a needle

in the haystack
of light.
It was what I was born for -
to look, to listen,

to lose myself
inside this soft world -
to instruct myself
over and over

in joy,
and acclamation.
Nor am I talking
about the exceptional,

the fearful, the dreadful,
the very extravagant -
but of the ordinary,
the common, the very drab,

the daily presentations.
Oh, good scholar,
I say to myself,
how can you help

but grow wise
with such teachings
as these -
the untrimmable light

of the world,
the ocean's shine,
the prayers that are made
out of grass?

3. i have loved you wrong--the swell season

4. dew, by dassler

hello again.

2009-10-09T23:29:00.005-05:00

mostly, just go to the end to read the lyrics & listen to "why it matters"

please forgive my long absence. i've been hanging with a really great guy, and he takes my attention away from the occasional blog post. planning a wedding: march 20. yay! there's a lot to unpack from the last three months or so, but we've got time. even though this post is not sequential to major life changes or the deep things that i can't yet write about this summer and fall...i'll eventually get there, don't you worry.

that said...wow. i heard two pretty amazing talks recently that reminded me. just reminded me, which is why i'm here writing.

andy crouch, author of culture making, shared with us about "living more musically." how can we live in such a way that we experience beauty, harmony, and healthy rhythms, rather than the fits and starts and anxiety that we tend to carry around? his whole pseudo sermon was done from the piano, and he integrated some beautiful melody and worship througout. something in it i was so hungry for, something in it touched an ache in my soul that i didn't know was there.

he talked some about melody and life in relation to bach's prelude in C. the piece begins with a basic and simple series of notes, really. as the melody progresses, more complexity and dissonance is added, making the melody more interesting as the journey continues on. then comes the most haunting and dark and beautiful part, but it feels like it is part of a story (the melody) even though it is very dissonant. and it continues to build and grow more complex. finally a beautiful resolution, which is, like he said, something that we are all longing for.

it touched something in me because i feel like with starting to counsel and get to hear more stories of things happening in people's lives, the more i see the beauty and sorrow all mashed up together.

the second talk he began with a story and a song. the song is called "why it matters". the story is that sara groves went to her mentor, charlie peacock, and asked him why it matters that she was doing the work that she was in writing music.

he told her this story: vedran smailovic was among many who survived the siege of sarajevo. he wanted to protest the death of 22 innocent people, so instead of going into the bomb shelters during the shelling of the city, he took his cello and went out to play mozart in the rubble of what had once been a fountain in the city square. below is a picture of him, and the song she wrote.

why it matters--sara groves

Sit with me and tell me once again
Of the story that's been told us
Of the power that will hold us
Of the beauty, of the beauty
Why it matters

Speak to me until I understand
Why our thinking and creating
Why our efforts of narrating
About the beauty, of the beauty
And why it matters

Like the statue in the park
Of this war torn town
And it's protest of the darkness
And the chaos all around
With its beauty, how it matters
How it matters

Show me the love that never fails
The compassion and attention
Midst confusion and dissention
Like small ramparts for the soul
How it matters

Like a single cup of water
How it matters

sparklers.

2009-06-13T19:38:00.002-05:00

we sit on the back porch where i have spent a hundred hours, maybe more. the box of wooden matches has spilled out all over the deck...we shuffle them around with our bare feet, talking over the events of the day, the week, a whole life.

a normal week night is anything but normal.

strike on box. we start to play with fire. the smell of matches fills the porch. everyone is tired from the demands of life, but it feels like spring outside on this june night, and we see that it should not be spent on tv or early sleep.

our friend runs down to the car and comes back triumphant, holding up a slim box with a gleeful smile: sparklers. we attempt to light them simultaneously so that all can sparkle at once, but chaos. everything becomes much more raucous for the next minute or two. summer exuberance. pyrotechnics in the smallest scale possible. just enough--my favorite kind. and laughter. the noises of this night are the kind you'd like to remember for the rest of your life.

if you look down over the rail of the deck into the fenced yards below, you see lightening bugs signaling their bright green blinking hellos to each other. somewhere i read that this a communication of danger. i watch them and decide that i'd like to contradict the scientists on this one. i'd like to think of it as their doing the same thing we are--scattered throughout the dark city blocks participating in a contagion of bioluminescent insect friendship.

"someone reaching for me now
through the dark, reaching for me now
you need someone to hear you when you sigh
someone to wipe away those tears you cry
someone to hold you 'neath the darkened sky
and someone to love you more than i..."
alexi murdoch, through the dark.

i hope you are getting a chance to occasionally sit on dimly lit porches, wave some sparklers and talk about life during this fine month. it'd be a real pity to miss it.

soundtracks:
alexi murdoch: through the dark
rachel yamagata: meet me by the water
cinematic orchestra: to build a home

and good reads:
soule papa: note to self

be where you are

2009-05-20T23:44:00.002-05:00

i am reminded again that we are all full of terror and fury and shame--having been shattered by the fall. we are all caught in the act. we are all scrambling to cover the foibles, the stains and the broken dishes, the lies and the bad decisions.

(an aside: i think i need a man who wants to make this into a song—a slow, sad, bluesy song with a slide guitar).

but i am also reminded that this isn't where the story ends. hallelujah.

she wrote that details matter. otherwise: drop a bomb on all of us. "say yes to life, all of life" she says. say yes to the real things about who we are.* we carry around the details that say life matters and each person matters; the making of music matters--those pictures and memories we carry around matter. even the mistakes.

i want to get it down: the knowing look and smile between friends--that moment when we realize that even though the sorrow is killing us, we are going to be OK. this matters. write it down, for goodness sake.

it will help us remember in all of our shambles and shitpiles that God is going to help us, like he always does. when we learn to tell the truth and admit our need, we see how Faithfulness works on us without giving up.

****

in morogoro, tanzania, in the hills called faulkland, i found myself in the middle of a thousand stories with names and sights and people you could never even dream up if you tried.

there are the giant racing snails hiding in the blades of grass that cover the hills, waiting for wet sidewalks to travel. there is a small girl named selena, whose tattered light blue dress falls off her shoulder as she dances and laughs. there is a semi-circle of grass thatched huts with a fire burning in the middle, and a woman bending to collect wood. there is a church with no roof surrounded by plantings of pink impatients in the brick red, dusty soil, where women come each afternoon to sit on wooden benches and sing together, over and over: "the blessing of God is around us."

i wonder: is it still a story if what came before and what comes next cease to matter? if these memories are enough to take me there, to remind me of my friend saying to me "when you see that place, you can't even cry"?

there is a place where the smiles and gentleness of the people in the stories seeped right down into the cracks in my heart and stole it; i think i fell in love for the first time in a long time.

****

we each have moments like these, don't we? the ones that sneak in and shake the foundations of our hearts in a way that we know we will never be the same. in a way that we are broken and healed all at the same time.

in a way that tells us yet again that we can't pretend like none of these things matter.

*natalie goldberg writing down the bones

you may or may not know

2009-05-13T22:36:00.005-05:00

you may or may not know
that if you drive along the northern coast of zanzibar--
say at 7:45 p.m. on a wednesday night--
you'd see people out for an evening stroll.

women walking in pairs with bright kangas draped around their shoulders against the slight chill in the air, boys and girls side by side.
a man with one hand clasping his arm behind his back, slightly bent forward,
going right along and listening to his friend
who is walking an old red bicycle and telling a story.

you may or may not know that all along that road
there are people sitting on front stoops,
peering into and out of tiny shops
where dim lightbulbs hang from the ceiling and pulse with generator electricity.

i bet you didn't know that is what you would see. i didn't either.
i didn't expect to see
the way the palm trees swayed against the dark sky.
the way what might have looked like lush wilderness
was mysteriously peopled with these figures
illuminated, captured in motion
in the headlights of a passing truck.

night prayers

2009-05-04T00:23:00.004-05:00

thank you
keeper of these lenghtening days and maker of the blooming trees.
thank you
one who knit together each and every thing we see,
even the ducks that wander in pairs and swim around the fountains in the park.

thank you
one who provides the things each creature needs--
(now more than ever i struggle to pray this--to believe it.
kristin asks: what about the girls in sonagacchi? does he not see them?
and i think, what about the widows in kibakwe who are suffering with AIDS?
i don't know the answer to these.)
in spite of not understanding and not knowing how to see or believe,
can i still say thank you?
and i praise you?

can i see that through all these days when i can't find my way home to you
you find your way to me?

thank you that in the inconsequential and consequential things
you still seek and comfort;
step by step you show the way.

thank you that in you there is no shadow,no shadow of turning.
(we know shadows of turning too well; we ache with them.
but you will not change your mind about us.)

tonight, the prayer is thank you.

in my new earth.

2009-04-25T11:13:00.008-05:00

Sehnsucht (zane-zoocht)—phenomenon of human longing or yearning; a word with strong overtones of seeking and searching.

we would all sit in living rooms
playing music late into the night.
lights down low
and everyone's already beloved faces
would become even more precious
in the safe light.
songs becoming new
as they do each time people play them together.

we would tromp through the fields
and sit by the flowing rivers
as dawn breaks into a brand new
a brand new day.
the birds in the evergreens
far away from any pavement, any highway.
far away from the honking of horns, from
sagging power lines,
from the industrial gunge.

we would sit by a fire
far away, out in the woods.
piling on the logs so high
that our wild spring bonfire
would rain sparks upside down
floating to the edges of a canopy of trees,
up to those other star filled galaxies
that look to us like tiny dots of light
above our gathering.

pour me a glass of wine.

2009-04-18T22:43:00.003-05:00

the thunder is rolling in as we speak. we've been waiting, waiting all day for this storm to show up. turn off that electric noise and listen to the rain finally start to come down. listen to the upstairs neighbors coming home...walkin all around the living room right above you--it's a night to be up and about, you will realize.

listen to the blossoms flying off the trees (you have to listen really, really hard). as the wind blows--a remnant of snowstorms coming from the west--listen.

pour me a glass of wine and just listen.

this rainy spring night i decided that i think deep down we are all just saying: tell me a good story. or maybe it's more like: i hope my life is a good story. what do you think of that?

my story...on this rainy night, reads that there's this song that i can't stop listening to (with the rain right there in the background--just so). and keeping me company--maybe more like making me stop and take stock--are some friendly and beautiful thoughts...excerpts from Linford's recent letter:

When I was younger I would often write myself short job descriptions. I was thinking out loud about what might be worth hanging a life on, a life I was willing to sign my name to:

-Create spaces where good things can happen.

-Give the world something beautiful, some gift of gratitude,
no matter how insignificant or small.

-Write love letters to the whole world.

-Build fires outdoors, and lift a glass and tell stories,
and listen, and laugh, laugh, laugh. (Karin says I’m still working
on this one. She thinks I still need to laugh more, especially at
her jokes, puns and witty asides.)

-Flip a breaker and plunge the farm into darkness so that the stars can be properly seen.

-Do not squander afflictions.

-Own the longing, the non-negotiable need to “praise the mutilated world.”

-Find the music.
...........

Music and art and writing: extravagant, essential, the act of spilling something, a cup running over…

.......

Uncertainty is the essential, inevitable and all-pervasive companion to your desire to make art. And tolerance for uncertainty is the prerequisite to succeeding.

A blessing for the writers among us: May all your dead ends be beautiful.

i wish i had a map to get me through all of this. since i don't (really), i guess the best thing to do is go one step at a time. eyes open, and listening.

mid april

2009-04-13T18:35:00.002-05:00

mid april and i woke up this morning to a bird that sounded like laughter. it's getting mighty green around here--that bright, new green. he makes all things new. all this aliveness and flowering makes you not even mind the rain.

i watched a powerful movie on good friday. it's called "as we forgive" and it's about healing and reconciliation in the last fifteen or so years in rwanda. it is very beautiful.

musics. this just in: listen to that moon song. mmmhmmm.

i love this shot from one of my two favorite photographers. can't wait to see what adventures lie ahead for the new camera.

here's a shot i like from the second:

i've sort of been on a poetry kick lately. a friend that had been blog absent for a good long time made a comeback and shared this. it is so nice, and it says it just right.

dove that ventured outside
rainer maria rilke

dove that ventured outside, flying far from the dovecote:
housed and protected again, one with the day, the night,
knows what serenity is, for she has felt her wings
pass through all distance and fear in the course of her wanderings.

the doves that remained at home, never exposed to loss,
innocent and secure, cannot know tenderness;
only the won-back heart can ever be satisfied: free,
through all it has given up, to rejoice in its mastery.

being arches itself over the vast abyss.
Ah the ball that we dared, that we hurled into infinite space,
doesn't it fill our hands differently with its return:
heavier by the weight of where it has been.

2009-03-31T15:39:00.001-06:00

I love you, gentlest of Ways,
who ripened us as we wrestled with you.

You, the great homesickness we could never shake off,

you, the forest that always surrounded us,
you, the song we sang in every silence,
you dark net threading through us...

rainer maria rilke.
love poems to God.

2009-03-26T12:34:00.010-06:00

ida pearle: season, kites
walking in the park this week i have seen a lot of this.
spring break = scone baking therapy. new book and happykneesock christmas presents. writing. botanical gardens and cherry blossoms. reading mary oliver & billy collins. conversations about manuals for people. catching up on good posts on favorite blogs. and music:
johann johannsson
riceboy sleeps: all the big trees
blackbird
m. ward: poison cup

lighten up.

2009-03-21T11:07:00.007-06:00

new.
waking up, the world is waking up.
already, and not yet.
spring: break out of the darkness into the longer days; i think we are ready for your surprises.

day of lions. nice.
going to see these guys tonight. thinking about riding my bike. thinking about how sometimes we lose our voices to our thoughts...clearing my throat and warming up to start to sing a new song with all of those birds out there.

enjoying not wearing heavy. winter. coats.

and swaying along to andrew bird...why?

and wanting to see this: weathered.

bradford pear buds from flickr.

something started in my soul, fever or forgotten wings

2009-02-06T23:55:00.000-06:00

poetry arrived.
pablo neruda

And it was at that age...Poetry arrived
in search of me. I don't know, I don't know where
it came from, from winter or a river.
I don't know how or when,
no, they were not voices, they were not
words, nor silence,
but from a street I was summoned,
from the branches of night,
abruptly from the others,
among violent fires
or returning alone,
there I was without a face
and it touched me.

I did not know what to say, my mouth
had no way
with names
my eyes were blind,
and something started in my soul,
fever or forgotten wings,
and I made my own way,
deciphering
that fire
and I wrote the first faint line,
faint, without substance, pure
nonsense,
pure wisdom
of someone who knows nothing,
and suddenly I saw
the heavens
unfastened
and open,
planets,
palpitating plantations,
shadow perforated,
riddled
with arrows, fire and flowers,
the winding night, the universe.

And I, infinitesimal being,
drunk with the great starry
void,
likeness, image of
mystery,
I felt myself a pure part
of the abyss,
I wheeled with the stars,
my heart broke free on the open sky.

when words don't seem to do the trick.

2009-02-04T18:45:00.006-06:00

it is a bright, cold, clear winter night, and i find myself nestled in bed amidst piles of reading-for-fun and reading-for-school books. the radiators are hissing occasionally but not warming up the rooms super well. there are creaks and thumps in this old building; it is only early evening, yet it is quite dark and still.

2009 has already been...well...full. i can't seem to find the right things to say in the right ways. when this is the case, i usually resort to music.

there are some albums that i rely on that generally just...work. whether it is a night like tonight or a warm, long-on-the-dusk summer evening out on the back steps, watching the sky turn from blue to black....i find that these three albums by good ol' linford all smushed together in a playlist of gentle awesomeness are just right: unspoken requests, grey ghost stories, i don't think there's no need to bring nothin.

lately i step back and look at my life and see that i am wrestling for a blessing and failing to believe and returning to the altar to kneel. i am surprised and blessed every day by the community i've been given. we're stumbling along together.

and i don't think there's no need to bring nothin.

stolen again.

2009-01-21T17:46:00.001-06:00

ed crim's "a year in forest park." see the project here.

stolen

2009-01-12T23:17:00.008-06:00

these are just a few from a friend's record of the l'abri retreat. he got some lovely shots.

2009-01-05T00:27:00.003-06:00

check out number 6--toumani diabate "cantelowes". it's great.

http://www.myspace.com/toumanidiabate

he's going to be at the sheldon april 9...anybody in?

happy new year.

2009-01-01T09:59:00.001-06:00

little red squares of mexicali

mia & jonah is quite nice.

i think i found something great here...you can download joe pug's lovely "hymn 101" free. here's an article on "all songs considered."
the lyrics to the whole song are good. a taste:

and you've come
to know me stubborn as a butcher
and you've come
to know me thankless as a guest
will you recognize my face
when god's awful grace
strips me of my jacket and my vest
and reveals all the treasure in my chest
"Hymn 101" - Joe Pug

am i the last on this bandwagon? "fools" is a great song by the dodos.

break has been so nice so far--time to read, reflect, have unhurried talks with friends, sit in the warm sunshine of the gnomes' kitchen, cook, write, watch movies and just be.

i picked up anne lamott's traveling mercies the other day and was reading a few old favorites. i like her wry humor and her tell it like it is-ness...she doesn't really try to sugarcoat it...any of it--life, relationships, faith. sometimes it's so honest it's cutting. there's one essay in this collection called "sister" about the slow process of her decision to get her hair done in twisty dreadlocks by a beautiful african american woman at her church. she talks about a longstanding hatred and shame of her frizzy red hair, because even into adulthood people asked if she'd stuck her finger in a light socket.

one of the things that made her decide to do it was a conversation with her friend pammy in a macy's dressing room. her friend was undergoing chemotherapy and wearing a wig to cover her baldness. anne describes trying on a dress that she thought her boyfriend would like, but she asked her friend if it made her look big in the hips. pammy answers, "annie, you just don't have that kind of time." she talks about this defining moment in relation to worries about the stupid things that don't matter--like what other people think of your crazy ass hair. i love it. fear, looking stupid, being out of our element, avoiding risk. can't that one line sort of sum up pivotal moments where you finally realize you have to stop being dumb and just live? "annie, you just don't have that kind of time."

i also started reading dan allendar's to be told, which is really, really...really good. it is hitting on some of the things i've been thinking about lately along the lines of story...what makes a good story, a good life. its about how we find the names God has given us. i'm still chewing on it a bit...

happy new year, friends. time to get out and enjoy the day.

2008-12-29T19:57:00.002-06:00

A friend shared this about what's going on in Congo now.

O come, o come.

signs

2008-12-28T00:02:00.006-06:00

Sometimes the days seem dark. I can’t catch my breath, feel like I'm walking into a fierce wind, feel like my heart is constricting with cold and lack of a vision; heavy with an ache that is more desperate than pesky.

I like to think about how stories work. We usually don’t want to watch a movie about a beautiful girl who does everything perfectly and wins the pageant with no struggle or effort. A good story starts when things don't go the way they are expected to go. If the hero of the story is buff and amazingly strong, suffers no injuries while not saving the world (cause it doesn't need to be saved); if he does everything easily with his superpowers, has no flaws, there are no glitches, and everyone is spared total annihilation with plenty of time to spare...that would be a terrible story. No conflict, no character development, no resolution.

I spent a lot of time recently watching the whole Lord of the Rings trilogy from start to finish. I was completely taken in by the story. All odds are against the hobbits. They are the unlikely heroes. They have to be exhausted and terrified and in places where they see no hope of ever completing the journey. They have to be in danger to find out that they are brave.

This is kind of an obvious point, I know, but sometimes we want our lives to be the most perfect, most boring script ever written. We want to avoid the things that end up being some of the best parts of the story—the fear, the suspense, ache, drama, yearning, beauty, mourning, disappointment, waiting. Stories are not really complete if they are too perfect. Things come together too neatly and there is not much to hold our attention.

*********

Recently I went for a hike in my favorite near-woods. I think the hobbit journey made me crave it, subconsciously. These woods are close to a highway, they are mapped out with trails and fences. There are train tracks running right through the park, and the trains came through three times on my hike. Long trains, car after car, piled high with heaps of coal. They lumbered through my favorite hiking spot in half hour intervals during the coldest day of the year so far.

This being the case, these woods are only near-woods, not the the true wilderness you really crave when you hear the metro announcement from your dining room table every 15 minutes. But being a city girl, I must settle for this two hour trip rather than wait in vain to hike in the mountains of New Zealand.

*********

Sometimes I ask God for signs. I know it’s kind of dumb (rationally--but what about faith is rational, anyway?); I know it’s an unfair demand--not that God can’t do any sign he wanted to, but that my belief in his goodness could or would be founded in his meeting my expectations? This habit of mine is pretty ridiculous--knowing all of the things he does to prove his faithfulness and care. But sometimes I lose sight of that, and the darkness makes things feel more hopeless than....like...sad, nihilistic French movie hopeless. I mean things feel really hopeless. This is the part of the story I want to avoid—the part where you get so low and desperate that you have to ask for help, have to ask for a sign. I really would rather avoid it all together.

So I was driving way out to the woods on this really cold day last week thinking: man, I just need to see a deer or something. The first part of the trail I was hiking is one long gravely hill up to a mile or so of path that winds along the top of the bluffs, overlooking the river. Below the bluffs are bare branched trees and the wide brown river that was icy along its banks but was still flowing swiftly.

Starting up the trail, everything was brown and frozen and wet piles of leaves. No real indication that two months ago the path was blazing with green, orange, yellow, and red and humming with bugs and critters and birds. That day it was desolate, one of the coldest days we’ve had in years.

I was trudging, and I was tired, and I knew I was looking for something by driving all the way out to these woods to walk up this long hill. It was just one of those weeks where you are uncomfortable in your own skin, where you feel terrified and dark and anxious and angry. I was walking with my head down and when I looked up on the hill above the trail, there were three deer nosing around the leaves on the forest floor about twenty feet from me. I stopped, somewhat perplexed, and met eyes with them. They took turns looking at me with their big brown eyes but didn’t run away. They stood eating and meandering. They ever so slowly wandered away up over a hill and I stayed there still on the trail, realizing when they were finally out of sight that I had been holding by breath.

After that as I kept walking it seemed like there were signs all around. There were finches and robins tussling about in the leaves, there was a cardinal swooping down across the path. There was a flock of geese camped out in the open field, stopping to rest like they were posed for a painting. The clouds cleared away and there was blue sky and winter sun coming down in streaks. There were blackbirds sitting high in the tops of the trees and taking flight over us all, swooping in the midst of the trees and singing with each other.

Somehow this happens a lot. I think it is meant to be part of the story...that things get desperate, and we ask for a sign and feel stupid asking for a sign. The reality is we need to see beyond ourselves and our limited perspectives and small lives and remember that the Creator of the universe calls us each by name. Too many times now the sign has been what I was sort of hoping for...something just out of the ordinary enough that it isn't coincidental, and it manages to take my breath away.

I am reminded that there are surprises left in my story, even when I don't have the faith to hope for them.

mmm.

2008-12-27T11:43:00.002-06:00

lisa congdon collage

you & me--matthew barber

some light

2008-12-17T19:34:00.005-06:00

Today was an industrial day. All gray and brown and melting snow. Driving on Page there are only the low-lying brick buildings and bread-box houses with dingy siding, there is the smudge of salt and ice on everything. The brown grass peeks out from under the snow. Bits of pale blue sky come through the heavy clouds. This day needs to give in to night and be covered over in a more forgiving darkness. It makes me feel like I am in Detroit or Minneapolis, makes the song "Life in a Northern Town" play in my head.

As dusk falls I find myself on the couch looking at the tree & listening to a nice mix of Mindy Smith, Sufjan, Charlie Brown and Over the Rhine Christmas albums. I just finished my first fun read, The Great Divorce, I'm making plans to go to U City library to find Animal, Vegetable Miracle.

Night has come and I am in against the cold, thinking about this: "So far from sitting on clouds playing harps, as people often imagine, the redeemed people of God in the new world will be agents of his love going out in new ways, to accomplish new creative tasks, to celebrate and extend the glory of his love." N.T.Wright. If you haven't read Surprised by Hope, do so. You will not regret it.

The lights are strung around the evergreen tree. It is in these quiet moments that I find myself thinking about those times when the sun breaks through the clouds, about being surprised glimpses of things that are far too bright to be of this world. I find myself thinking about how learning to see makes your heart ache more, not less.

I found this over at oakies. It is too lovely to not share as we all here, we all here are waiting. And yet to some who waited long ago, there was tangible fulfillment of promises in some of the most unexpected ways.

waiting.

All was taken away from you: white dresses,
wings, even existence.
Yet I believe in you,
messengers.

There, where the world is turned inside out,
a heavy fabric embroidered with stars and beasts,
you stroll, inspecting the trustworthy seams.

Short is your stay here:
now and then at a matinal hour, if the sky is clear,
in a melody repeated by a bird,
or in the smell of apples at close of day
when the light makes the orchards magic.

They say somebody has invented you
but to me this does not sound convincing
for the humans invented themselves as well.

The voice — no doubt it is a valid proof,
as it can belong only to radiant creatures,
weightless and winged (after all, why not?),
girdled with the lightening.

I have heard that voice many a time when asleep
and, what is strange, I understood more or less
an order or an appeal in an unearthly tongue:

day draw near
another one
do what you can.

- Czeslaw Milosz

O come.
O come.

isn't there anyone who knows what christmas is all about?!

2008-12-10T00:34:00.006-06:00

it's been a long day!! my mind just won't stop.
christmas curses!:
1. one line of "little drummer boy" in your head for two days straight: "the ox and lamb kept time ba rum pum pum pummmmmm". does anyone else think that song is kind of weird?
2. strange finals induced insomnia
3. sore elbows from sitting 12 hours straight in a study carroll (which is not as fun as a christmas carol, believe me!)
4. too many fun things to do and too little time!!!!
5. 2, count 'em, TWO nails in the tire of my (brother's) car...(offset by his generous tire repair errand whilst i study carrolled).
6. ice on the windshield and no gloves! ba humbug and many worse things were said this evening at 11:00 p.m. in the covenant seminary parking lot (should i admit that in such a public forum?...it reminds me of this funny.

other than these small and very inconsequential annoyances, i love christmas time. our tree is beautiful and our house is glowy. i have one final left!! if only i could sleeeeep.

A few more classics to take you wayyyy back, since i'm awake anyways:
scrooge
old favorite charlie brown
rodenty
classic sinatra
new favorite--beautiful wintersong

Zechariah's song

2008-12-06T17:06:00.002-06:00

67His father Zechariah was filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesied:
68"Praise be to the Lord, the God of Israel,
because he has come and has redeemed his people.
69He has raised up a horn of salvation for us
in the house of his servant David
70(as he said through his holy prophets of long ago),
71salvation from our enemies
and from the hand of all who hate us—
72to show mercy to our fathers
and to remember his holy covenant,
73the oath he swore to our father Abraham:
74to rescue us from the hand of our enemies,
and to enable us to serve him without fear
75in holiness and righteousness before him all our days.
76And you, my child, will be called a prophet of the Most High;
for you will go on before the Lord to prepare the way for him,
77to give his people the knowledge of salvation
through the forgiveness of their sins,
78because of the tender mercy of our God,
by which the rising sun will come to us from heaven
79to shine on those living in darkness
and in the shadow of death,
to guide our feet into the path of peace."
Luke 1:67-69

it's crazy time

2008-12-01T17:03:00.001-06:00

I can't believe Thanksgiving weekend is already over. Tonight is one of those amazing winter nights...it looks much like the one pictured above from a fun trip to Rochester L'Abri in Feb 2007. A sharp orange sunset behind tangled, bare branches, and snow on the ground. We have a Christmas tree and the apartment smells nice and piney, but it is yet to be decorated.

A friend showed me this interesting artist--chris jordan. He's a photographer who depicts U.S. over-consumption and waste. I really like his work.

To let you know how things have been around here, last Wednesday night found a post-it note that had "cheese" scrawled on it haphazard handwriting. It was sometime this week but I can't remember why I wrote it, because I don't need any cheese. I also found the peanut butter in the fridge. My toothbrush was on the dining room table, my socks were both inside out, and my eyelid was twitching. Ohhh golly.

For as exhausting as it is, school is awesome. i love it love it looooove it.

Seeing movies at Christmas time...how great. It is so cozy! I saw Australia--it is a mutt of a movie...western, drama, war movie, mystical tale, historical fiction, musical, romance...what am i forgetting? My friend accidentally called the dude in it "Huge Jackman". a little bit overboard with the muscles, dude. We understand that hollywood has high expectations, but you look like you're on steroids. Whatever you do, don't see a christmas tale. It is absolutely depressing and bizarre, and it is not a comedy. Do not be fooled!

Iiiiii should be studying. Back to the books!

2008-11-23T16:21:00.003-06:00

And Mary said:
"My soul glorifies the Lord
and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
for he has been mindful
of the humble state of his servant.
From now on all generations will call me blessed,
for the Mighty One has done great things for me—
holy is his name.
His mercy extends to those who fear him,
from generation to generation.
He has performed mighty deeds with his arm;
he has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts.
He has brought down rulers from their thrones
but has lifted up the humble.
He has filled the hungry with good things
but has sent the rich away empty.
He has helped his servant Israel,
remembering to be merciful
to Abraham and his descendants forever,
even as he said to our fathers."
Luke 1:46-55

camping in the city and hobbitty feasts

2008-11-19T13:50:00.011-06:00

photos by dassler and court

just like you're there.

2008-11-08T18:19:00.005-06:00

art by the innocence mission

into the mystic--swell season
white winter hymn--fleet foxes
love will tear us apart--arcade fire & u2
lakes of canada--sufjan covering innocence mission

2008-10-31T22:26:00.004-06:00

mine are definitely not as good as the contestants in dassler's haiku contest, but i was inspired...and am enjoying being a little crazy syllable counter and taking it all in.

safekeeping
Each fall the leaves turn,
heavy with color and full
of summer’s long light.

They hang on, and shine.
It is time to relinquish--
down spinning they come.

stop and listen
Sun shining and bright
orange trees reaching to the sky.
In the wind: selah.

October 28, 4:46 P.M.
Incandescent trees--
perfectly orchestrated
haphazard glory.

not so far off...

Christmas Eve
Three birds glide and stop
to sing me a winter hymn
from a high, bare branch.

********
did you know that if you are doing skype chat, you can drag songs from your itunes to share with members of your chat? how cool. someone did that for me this week, and i got this out of it. amazing.

A night of songs.

2008-10-11T18:39:00.004-05:00

“I was born to love. I'm gonna learn to love without fear. Pour me a glass of wine, Talk deep into the night, Who knows what we'll find?” (over the rhine)

Friday night. The week sits on my shoulders like ten extra pounds. I think—you don’t need to carry this…and shrug a little.

Dusk is my favorite time of day. I sit out on the back porch smoking in honor of my favorite porch sitting smokers. And the metro passes, the crickets are singing, there are still leaves on the trees but things are just just beginning to turn toward winter. Autumn is walking up the sidewalk in front of my house, and she is about to knock on the door.

"Don't see me only as I am but see me how I long to be. Shining like a flowering tree under a gray Pennsylvania sky. Look for me as you go by."

I hear sounds coming from other apartments—we all have our windows open to the oncoming night—people making dinner, someone talking on the phone. The black cat that often slinks around comes slinking around. She sits on the steps that lead to the basement and looks up at me with her bright eyes and white-inside ears. She blinks long slow blinks, but keeps watching me. We have prolonged eye contact. She has secrets to tell. Maybe she just wants to say, “Isn’t this october evening just beautiful?” She hangs out with me a few more minutes and promptly steals away as neighbors come downstairs for their evening out. I want to be old fashioned and say: “Good evening” but instead I say, “Hi,” and they are on their way.

Listen closely, you can almost hear it: “Don’t be hiding in sorrow, or clinging to the past. With your beauty so precious, and the season so fast. No matter how cold the horizon appears, or how far the first night when I held you near-- You gotta rise from these ashes like a bird of flame. Step out of the shadow: We’ve gotta go where we can shine.”

*************

Lately I find that we apologize to one another for what we think we are: “ I am a loner, a loser, a complicated wreck.”* Well, maybe it’s true. But usually it’s not. And how great is it to find that occasionally we are, and someone still loves us in spite of it? Isn’t this, in the end, what allows us to change?

……“We gotta go
Where we can shine”……………

The cat is now making her rounds through the parking lot, weaving among the cars and stopping to paw at something in the grass underneath golden glow of the street light. The fire escape lamp is buzzing, and star number one has entered the scene, looking for her number two. It really is a strangely ugly yet lovable place back here. Citynightparadise.

**************

In a little bit I will reunite with old friends and drink some wine, play some cards, tell some stories, and laugh. We come to the table knowing each other’s complicated wreck stories, and we realize that they make us who we are but don’t have to define us.

***************

We find ourselves waking up to love and absolutely terrified. And shouldn’t we be? And shouldn’t we at some point decide to take the leap? Inside all of us is this restless flurry of terror and hope and worry and exhultation. "Every burden shall be lifted. Every stone upon your back slide into the sea. It's me for you and you for me."

We know we are alive. It is poignant, and it is what matters.
Cheers to moments just like these.

“For all that we struggle, and all we pretend…It don’t’ come down to nothin but Love in the end.”

* From: The Holiday
song lyrics from over the rhine, david gray, the innocence mission

prone to distraction

2008-09-28T21:00:00.004-05:00

(Calcutta, found here)
Inní mér syngur vitleysingur
Glosoli

September random happenings, random blog

2008-09-27T09:08:00.006-05:00

It is quite lovely here in St. Louis right now. It has been 80 every day, sunny. We had the balloon glow and Hennapalooza 2008, a lovely birthday party at a winery. Life is blessed, and friends are great!!

School schedule has taken over. Life is busy and good....This week was kind of an intense one--I shared a testimony in chapel about Ethiopia and we had a ministry lunch about the trip (and others who were away in the summer) and it went really well! Helping arrange these kinds of things has been a really fun part of one of my jobs at school. Today is a bit of a breather with 6 uninterrupted non-sleeping hours at home! I love home! Am going to clean and study and cook! Wahoo!! (I am sounding much like Kristin right now).

I've yet to be tested or turn in any papers for class yet this semester, which is kind of unusual. It has lulled me into a dangerous state of denial/complacency that may bite back in a few weeks. We'll see...

Am looking at my tiny desk globe this morning and thinking about friends scattered....Galati, Kathmandu, LaPaz, Phoenix, Bundibugyo, Freetown, Largo, Paso Robles, Omaha, Atlanta, Chapel Hill, Kolkata, Morogoro, Addis...and other locations. Won't the reunion be great?

The other night I had a great conversation with the roomie and decided to take a walk in the beautiful evening to see my favorite neighborhood fountains. Instead, when I reached the lake, I came upon the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra giving a free outdoor concert in the natural amphitheater of the hill coming down from the art museum. They played a waltz from carousel that was particularly beautiful, and a Berlioz "Hungarian March." And then there were fireworks. It was a perfect night. What a surprise!

Looking:
The Great Debaters
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (quite lovely...watch it!!)
BabyMama

Listening: mixes gifted from friends. Love it!! Among the goodies:
Gagging Order, Radiohead
The Story, Brandi Carlyle

Reading (required and non):
God's Design: A Focus on Old Testament Theology, Martens
Surprised by Hope, Wright
The Holy Spirit, Ferguson
Freedom At Midnight, Collins & LaPierre
Life in Biblical Israel, King & Stager
Simple Spirituality, Heuertz (!)
Crafty Blogs: Flour, wikstenmade, Paperiaarre, La Chataigne

This is eating away a beautiful morning. Best be getting going now.

What's scarier than a tornado?

2008-09-08T20:15:00.002-05:00

The guy on the radio telling you in the creepy human replicant mechanized cyborg voice (which was somehow so much more menacing and mechanical sounding in my car on a dark, rainy, blair witch like road at night) that a severe thunderstorm warning has upgraded to a tornado warning. Oh my gosh. I almost started screaming in the car.

नेस्टिंग

2008-08-23T13:54:00.004-05:00

Apparently now when I type titles to my blog, it decides sometimes to revolt and type in Nepali script. This time it says "nesting". The script is much like Bengali script, so I can sort of read it.

Last Friday morning on my way to get coffee in the kitchen, I stopped dead in my tracks, sniffing the air. There was a cool breeze blowing in from the open living room window, the sunlight was already slanting down through the huge old tree in front of our house. It was early. I could hear the voices of kids outside.

"It smells like something. What does it smell like?" I asked Court. She froze just as I had, narrowed her eyes, sniffed a few times, and waited. "It smells like school," she said with eyebrows raised.

Yeessssss! That was exactly it. The edge of coolness, the smell of lawn mowing in the neighborhood, the smell of morning. It makes you want to buy new pens and note cards, doesn't it?

Today the roomie and I cleaned up a storm. The kind of cleaning where you wipe down your weird tiled kitchen ceiling and scape leaves out of the window sills, make everything fresh, rearrange the slip covers, dust the baseboards, clean out behind those catch-all radiators, evict the spiders that have taken residence behind shelves and in dark corners. How satisfying.

For Perhaps:

School starts Thursday, and I think this cleaning frenzy is a form of nesting. Going to school is a bit like having a baby--there are some things you can expect and know will be hard, some amazing things that you never could have known were in store, some things you will learn about yourself and others that are great, and some things that will be revealed about yourself and the world that are not so great. Getting ready for the flurry of activity, the full weeks and many books to read and meetings to attend. Making space, organizing. Mentally, emotionally. There is build-up, there is anticipation.

A group of us in what I have recently decided to name "the western edge of the eastside" (which sort of works, depending on where you are in St. Louis) are setting up a carpool group. There is talk of community dinners before some evening classes. I think that, yes, I am excited for school to start.

The faculty moved into offices in the new building on campus, one that they have been working on for the past year. It was needed, since the other building is sort of falling in on itself. At the same time, walking through to drop something off to a professor sort of gave me a heart ache. The building is quite lovely, quite expensive and smelling like fresh paint and newness.

But I think I am just kind of ruined. My office with the new job will be in this beautiful building, but there is the reality of the rest of the world that is a low hum (sometimes a loud screech) in my brain that makes just going through daily activities of living uncomfortable and saddening. I actually posted another thing like this a while back, but took it down because I felt like a real Debbie Downer. But it still sickens me: I see this, and I can't help but think of this.

As I sit in classes learning about counseling, I focus my mind on the thin, sorrow etched face of the woman whose living room I sat in in Ethiopia. A woman whose eyes looked exhausted, whose life for the last several years has entailed caring for her husband, who is now in the process of dying. About a month ago, we sat in this living room and prayed with this man who is in the final stages of AIDS, whose brain has been affected by the disease. He sat up in a chair and light poured in to their tiny corrugated metal home through a sunlight cut into the roof. It came down right on him, as if he were being illuminated by Light Himself. His face became golden with the light. I felt like I was catching a glimpse of some sort of transfiguration as we prayed for healing and comfort for this family. It was a sort of bizarre, holy and life-transforming thing that you don't soon forget, that induces mourning and hope at the same time.

Lord have mercy.

So. As the school year begins, there is anticipation, there is sorrow, there is frustration, there is thankfulness for friends and community. And there is the hope that with all of us God breaks in and captures our hearts for a vision of his Kingdom that is more than classrooms, more than maddening discrepancies, more than situations that feel hopeless, more than what we personally can or can't do. I reflect back over years past, and the ways God has confronted, transformed, challenged, healed, chided and beckoned. And I guess as the school year starts I sort of know what to expect from myself and from Him: I have no idea what it will look like, but I am looking forward to more; asking him to show us more.

work

2008-08-18T17:10:00.004-05:00

I am a cook. I have sliced and roasted, toasted, stirred, sautéed, pureed, baked, boiled, measured, chopped, spooned, spread, diced, mixed and shredded.

Today I poured the muffins into the tins, and made the scones. The scones plop down onto the metal trays one by one filled with all kinds of mouth-watering things—cranberries and almonds, walnuts and chocolate chips, cinnamon, apples, raisins, blueberries, cranberries, raspberries, bananas. There are times when there are chunks of butter in the dough, so that when you bake them off, there are little glistening pools. They steam a bit. They melt in your mouth. They are biscuity outside and soft inside. Golden brown on top—that’s when you know they are done. You don’t set at timer. You check back often.

There is the flour, patted off my hands and onto my apron a hundred times a day. Buttery off-white sugar cookie dough made in the big mixer. Its texture is fluffy and soft; you can barely taste the cream cheese and vanilla, but they are there. Sugar cookies with with vanilla butter cream frosting on top, sprinkled with shiny, brightly colored sanding sugar to decorate the sunflower and ice cream cone shapes.

The colors and textures—you wouldn’t believe them: the waxy skinned green zucchini and cucumber; red tomatoes that smell like heaven. The eggplant with the skin of a shark, the skin of a seal, the waxy deep purple skin. It is a bit squeaky; is shiny and waterproof. Amazing God-made thing. Squash with its spongy texture and intricate patterns of dots and seeds inside, like a henna tattoo in white.

Then there are the watermelons, with their stippled green outer layer and surprising pink insides. The juice runs out when you pick up the slices; soft and crunchy at the same time. Who could think of such a combination? As I slice, I think: what if we had to describe our food to aliens, to people who didn’t know what watermelon was?

At 8:30 I go out to cut stems of basil that grows as tall as your waist in the back garden, near the fire escape. I feel like a culinary florist. Snip snip.
Today I make small focaccia pizzas on herbed bread with garlic and olive oil, provolone, artichokes, roasted red peppers. Tomato, basil and mozzarella. One that is savory sweet: spinach with tart cranberries, gorgonzola and a drizzle of honey on top. Cheddar in slices, mozzarella in soft shreds, parmesan in even shards, feta in tasty little crumbles.

I stir the giant pots of black beans and onions, tomatoes and cilantro. Make rice with spices and lemon juice and garlic to go with the falafel patties, baked in the oven until they are brown and crispy. Tray after tray after tray brushed with olive oil and filled with sliced vegetables for roasting.

The kitchen smells of cinnamon, then of garlic and onions, then of chocolate chip cookies. I need to chop thirty potatoes—chop until my fingers are numb.

Everything has a process, but to me it is a wonderfully loose science. There is always a new combination to be made to fit your mood—a subdued tomato garbanzo bean soup, an ostentatious three bean wine and cheese soup with crusty toasted bread to go alongside. A new flavor fitting to each season—roasted apples with sautéed onions, honey mustard and brie on wheat bread. Depending on the busyness of the day, we make treats in secret. Our favorite is croissants stuffed with roasted walnuts, raspberries and chocolate.

We eat together, tasting new experimental recipes. Maybe this is why when you work in a kitchen with someone, you feel a little like family. We eat together standing around listening to someone’s mix cd brought from home, or to NPR’s morning edition. It sounds funny, but there is a whole world inside that tiny space. We talk about unexpected things, things that would surprise you.

Everyone brings their hunger to the kitchen, if you know what I mean.

When it is time to leave, my feet ache a bit, and my hands are stained with the ingredients I have used. I am covered in a misted film of olive oil, spices, flour and butter, and the smell of roasted coffee. I untie my apron and pack up my cds, and emerge into the intense sunlight of the hot afternoon. Later, I find a stowaway slice of zucchini in the cuff of my jeans.

I have been a cook. And now, back to school.

2008-08-15T18:37:00.001-05:00

नेल्पाली?

2008-07-22T15:19:00.013-05:00

Whoa. My computer just started typing in Nepali. Pretty cool, but I had to restart. I'm not sure what the title says, but I typed "Nepali?"....

The blog is boring me, and I'm tired of the self-humiliating last post. Although I really loved my meme-ees responses! Happy to have such endearingly strange friends. Happy that April is a coffee drinker now!! Hee hee. Happy that Heidi's friend is helping her to simplify.

Life has been quite busy with Kaldis and the new job at Covenant, catching up with people, skype talks, house sitting, getting ready for the school year. This fall I have a class on Old Testament History and Theology, which is exciting, and for which I am reading through the OT. I thought it best to start now rather than try to stuff that reading time into the semester. In the midst of work there are fun things too, like watching these with friends and sweating it out in our non-ac apartment.

Movie fun: There Will Be Blood, Lars and the Real Girl, Rocket Science, The Princess & the Warrior

Haven't had as much time as I'd like this summer, but there has been some reading fun too:
So Brave,Young and Handsome--Leif Enger
Clowning in Rome--Henri Nouwen
Things Fall Apart--Chinua Achebe

Up next:
What is the What?--Dave Eggers
Skeptic's guide to the AIDS crisis--Dale Hanson Bourke
Simple Spirituality--Chris Heuertz
Just Courage--Gary Haugen
Reason for God--Tim Keller
The Re-Entry Team--Caring for Your Returning Missionaries--Neal Pirolo

One of the perks of Kaldis is baking scones and cookies and getting to listen to music all morning. If you have any recommendations, send them my way. I tend to get in pretty major ruts (like my 16 year love relationship with Over the Rhine.) So, early morning listening fun:
Seven Swans--Sufjan Stevens
Postcards from Italy--Beirut
Enter the Worship Circle--4th Circle
Chair and Microphone, Vol 2.--Aaron Strumpel
Heartbreaker--Ryan Adams

2008-07-17T18:41:00.001-05:00

Jara the self-memer memed me. Whatever that means.

Here are the rules:
1. Link to your tagger and post these rules on your blog.
2. Share 7 facts about yourself on your blog, some random, some weird.
3. Tag 7 people at the end of your post by leaving their names as well as links to their blogs.
4. Let them know they are tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

Ok, here are 6 things, because one of them is a real long and humiliating story about myself:

1. I sometimes have premonitions, like dreaming things will happen and they do, or thinking of someone just before they call, or predicting marriages before people are even dating.
2. I have what Kristin calls "the angry fist", which comes out more in with people I know pretty well, and when I'm talking about injustice.
3. I really like it when people laugh really hard when they're telling their own funny stories. Or the opposite, people who can keep a straight face and be totally serious when everyone else is dying (eg. Brent Anderson and "i can't help it").
4. I'm really not the most coordinated person around...but sometimes I wonder if being left-handed has something to do with it? I regularly notice things designed for a righties, because they just feel awkward. Those sun shades that go in your car windshield are designed for right-handed twisty-folding, which makes me sit in my car...sweating, wrestling with those stupid shades like an idiot...or wrapping up extension cords or sound cables...it is backwards for us lefties!

Also working in a kitchen I've noticed that a lot of kitchen utensils are designed for righties--can openers & ice cream/dishing scoops that have thumb levers, food processors and other things with lock-in mechanisms like stand mixers.

5. I love browsing etsy because of things like this and this and this and even this. Just so weird.

6. I sometimes modify words to get the right feeling when trying to explain things... like "romantic-y" or "annoying-ish," which usually doesn't get me into too much trouble. But I recently tried to explain to some friends why evites sort of stress me out. It's stupid really...and the point of the story was that Myers-Briggs helped me understand that as an "INFP" I am more of a "feeling-perceiver" when it comes to social events, wanting to have the freedom to not go or go depending on how crazy busy the week has been and how I feel at the time of the event, not three weeks before. But as I explained it, I said to them: "I think it's my "P"-ness. I just don't want to be boxed in." Yes, yes I did. And I think it was significantly later (days, a week?) that I realized what I'd actually said. And not one of them laughed at me (they are too kind--I deserve to never live it down!). I realized later on that envisioning the word in my head (ie. "P"-ness) is not as effective as listening to what I was actually saying. Hee hee!!

On a funny side note, I'm apparently not the only one who has done this. In seminary-land sometimes we go a little overboard explaining things with Myers-Briggs letters. I recently heard a story about a guy (I have no idea who it was) who arrived like 2 hours late for a date, and when his date opened the door he went on to explain to her several times: "It's my "P"-ness, that's why I was late." He recognized the look of confusion (shock? horror?) on his date's face and realized what he was saying actually sounded like, and apparently literally fell down on the floor laughing outside her door repeating over and over: "It's my p-ness." Kills me.

Ok. I meme Amanda, Tanya, Heidi, Katy, April, Kristin and Jess, even though he won't do it.

Home

2008-07-05T10:14:00.002-05:00

Dear Friends & Family,

Sitting in my sunroom on a quiet Saturday morning, I'm a bit sad to be home from Addis Ababa. It was a gift to be with such a great team who nurtured and supported one another and to see such an incredible project. Forgive me for not writing sooner--we didn't have access to the internet during the trip.

I’ll get right down to the good stuff. The project we visited is based out of three different neighborhood communities--Lideta, Bole and Kolfe--the HIV/AIDS home-based care project reaches more than 4000 HIV+ individuals and their families (from "Who We Are").
We were privileged to go with staff members into the homes of many beneficiaries--those HIV+ individuals enrolled in the program who receive medical treatment, economic assistance, family support, nutritional counseling, spiritual support and anti-retroviral treatment.

The most striking thing was the faithfulness and love of the staff there. From each of the centers, staff goes into communities carrying out home visits, and at each center they host Bible studies, community support groups, and medical evaluation & nutritional support, development of micro-business ventures through support groups. It was unlike anything I have ever seen in terms of holistic approach to each individual's needs. They even employ “EPTs” or Expert Patient Trainers, who are patients who have exceptional track record with adherence to the program and who can walk alongside those who receive positive diagnosis and are grappling with the drastic and terrifying implications of this news and say “See, I am doing ok. Let’s walk through this together.”

From conversations with project staff and observations of their daily work, it was evident that they are motivated deeply by compassion and commitment to the individuals and families they have come to know in the program. Many said that their favorite thing to do is to go on home visits, which I can now understand. Being welcomed into the homes of the beneficiaries was incredible. Many of the HIV+ individuals and their families are deeply stigmatized from their communities and families, and most, in spite of their deep struggles, demonstrate love, hospitality, generosity and deep empathy for others.

The beneficiaries shared their struggles with us during individual counseling sessions, group support meetings & Bible studies, and home visits. Their situations are very difficult. Many live in fear of others finding out their positive status. Many live in constant pain from the effects of the disease. Many, if people know of their status, are forced out of their homes by landlords who drastically raise the rent of their corrugated metal and dirt-floored homes each month. Attached to this unstable dynamic is fear of the future—where will they live if this prejudicial treatment continues? How will they care for their children? What will it be like to again try to hide their sickness and eventually be found out and have to be displaced? What happens if their health takes a turn for the worse? Who will be with them and care for them when they are dying? Who will care for their children?

Most of those we met were mothers, most widows who are sick and caring for several children without any other support. But the stories we heard over and over were of God's faithfulness to them through the project--that they can now come to the community center and the support groups and be encouraged, pray with one another, and tell their stories. These healing communities cry with one another and laugh together. Simply beautiful.

During our time, our team carried out home visits with staff, did individual counseling, and led several support groups and community bible studies at the different centers. We were in way over our heads. None of us felt equipped to be counseling or hearing the stories that we were hearing, but that is a good thing. Through our inadequacy and feeling overwhelmed, we saw God working and healing. We were reminded of the healing that takes place when someone is able to tell their story, to share their fears, to be heard and loved and accepted, and to pray to a God who hears. We all need to be reminded of a God who hears.

This is long, so I best end, but in other exciting news, I started a new job last month as assistant in the Missions department at Covenant Seminary. I am excited that this job offers opportunity to push forward in Covenant’s internship program—hopefully allowing other classmates to have the opportunity to carry out their pastoral, counseling and ministry internships alongside people like those we met and learned from in Ethiopia this past week. Another part of the job is planning trips just like this one, enabling students to have the gift of experiences like we have had this past few weeks serving and learning from the faithful in Addis Ababa.

To see God at work throughout the world in individuals and through the faithful world-wide church is a life-changing (and in my opinion best) way to integrate theological training. Our theology should be a lived one-- an understanding of who God is and how he is present in the world experienced through wrestling, suffering, doubt, mourning, joy, seeing faithful saints minister and worship together, failure, grace and conversations in the homes of people drastically different and not so different from us.

I would love to hear how you are doing these days--over a tiny cup of coffee (Ethiopia style), tiny cup of tea (India & Nepal, Kenya & Tanzania style), big cup of coffee or tea (St. Louis style)--and share where you are wrestling or in joy, where you need to see or clearly see God at work.

Also, please take a look at the website and see what the project is about, and continue to pray with me for the people we met there. Pictures to come.

With love,

angela

Songs for traveling.

2008-06-21T23:02:00.001-05:00

image from sigur ros "hvarf"

I was talking to a friend tonight and realized my favorite "looking out the window of the plane" music is (don't mind the naked bums on their album cover! oh my!) Sigur Ros. It's hauntingly beautiful, sad and wonderful. If you have not had a chance to see Heima yet, it's a great film about their band, and about being home. Also, not surprisingly, very moving.

This is also going to be my trip music.

And this too, which reminds me of the music from Amalie. Try "Elephant Gun."

We leave tomorrow for Chicago, then London, then Addis Ababa. I'm procrastinating instead of packing. A bit ago the sun set into an evening of porch sitting, eating good food and talking to good friends. My favorite things. It's like getting to leave town on a full stomach, if that makes sense. Good community is not something to be taken for granted. Thanks friends, for being who you are.

Court let me borrow Through Painted Deserts, by Donald Miller, for trip reading. The subtitle is Light, God and Beauty on the Open Road. That sounds just about perfect. I've also been reading Nouwen's Clowning In Rome--highly recommended by several friends, and so far some interesting thoughts on solitude, celibacy, prayer and contemplation.

A friend shared this article with me about the project we are going to be visiting and working with. It makes me a little bit afraid that, like Tanzania, I might not want to come home. It's not that home isn't wonderful, but you know...

AIDS Ministry Serves As a Means of Reconciliation
May 2008

“We looked around and didn’t see anybody doing anything about it.”

So said Mission to the World (MTW) missionary Andy Warren about caring for HIV/AIDS patients living in the slums of Ethiopia.

“We saw a lot of people talking about the problem, but no one addressing the needs of the poorest of the poor.”

Andy and Bev Warren, who serve as both MTW and Serving in Mission (SIM) missionaries, moved to Addis Ababa 12 years ago and began ministering to HIV/AIDS patients in 2002. Their AIDS Care and Treatment (ACT) project focuses on caring for HIV-positive patients and their families.

“We started small—just going into homes in the slums, making sure people got fed, their rent was paid, household tasks were done,” said Warren. Now ACT is the lead agency for HIV care in the country, employing 75 Ethiopian staff in 14 health centers and hospitals, and counseling some 10,000 patients each year.

“Our care has had so much success that the government has asked us to take over,” said Warren. “There’s no limit on what we’ll do for our patients. We tell them, ‘If there’s a legitimate need you have, we’ll meet it.’”
The Warrens’ work through ACT includes everything from making sure the sick see a doctor to providing watches and pillboxes to remind patients to take their medications to helping provide money for patients’ children to attend school. They also organize the sick into support groups so that they can learn from and help one another.

“Our counselors coach patients with medical information, positive living teaching, and spiritual guidance,” said Warren. “And we train ‘expert patients,’ who are also HIV-positive, to reach out to those who have just been diagnosed.”

Warren sees ACT’s HIV/AIDS ministry as a means of reconciliation. “We tell our staff all the time that the Fall has affected everything, and that we’re here to bring reconciliation through the gospel—reconciliation with God, with others, and with creation, by fighting disease.”

He cites ministries of compassion as the way early Christianity spread. “Everyone else fled the cities when disasters occurred—fires, earthquakes, plagues. But the Christians stayed and cared for people and buried the dead. They became famous for it, and that’s the reason Christianity grew the way it did.”

Warren’s MTW church-planting team has recently added new members, including a doctor, and has future plans to expand their ministry.

“We’re hoping to help those with tuberculosis and terminal illness, and we’d like to try to reduce infant mortality,” he said. “We’re really like to reach the whole community—not just those with AIDS.”

I'll see ya soon.

"we will only see as much grace as we risk needing."

2008-06-10T21:47:00.007-05:00

Excerpt from this great post on this great blog.

"Jars, a whole village’s collection, in 2 Kings 4, gathered by a widow and mysteriously filled with oil. In the morning’s sermon the young preacher quoted William Carey’s 'Expect great things from God, attempt great things for God...' The oil flowed to fill every pot she brought, the abundance equal to her vision and industry. A great picture for us: we will only see as much grace as we risk needing."

from paradoxuganda

Also, listen to this: Breathe in Breathe Out. Nice.

evenings and mornings

2008-06-08T18:28:00.005-05:00

the african violet is blooming again. three pink flowers, and hiding under their petals, five unopened buds. all straining toward the light on that ledge in the kitchen that looks out into the back yard, which parades its own simple fertility. looking out the window, and watching the light wane, i am tempted go out and steal a handful of the freshly mown lawn just so i can keep smelling it.

evening begins to arrive. the evenings meander in this late spring; they are full of cricket noises, drips from our upstairs neighbor's air conditioner, cicadas. there are not silences in the city nights.

a season of blooms straining toward the light. a season of drinking in--of watching the fullness--so that there are no such thing as restless hours.

a friend told me that he used to mistake drama for something profound. the chaos and passion seem mysterious, but we feel foolish when we realize that we are scurrying in senseless circles; that we are saying nothing new; that the words and patterns we tinker with are insipid and lacking imagination.

sometimes it is a surprise when we remember that He created us to be people of visions and dreams in our sleep, and in our waking. that in the here and now, there is possibility for what could and should, and will eventually, be.

****

as evening falls i go out walking into the sliver-mooned night, my mind thirsty and searching: needing to know that i am resting in God's palm--with the indigo sky and the brightening stars. i go out into the fading day looking for the new words, asking for the promised illumination. i listen and watch. this and every night threaten to pass by without my noticing, threaten to sneak away from me in a moment of distraction if i don't choose to take notice.

the words begin to come as i walk. the night, the feeling in my feet, the smell on the wind--make me think of bread with honey, make me think of memories of things that make you cry in a good way. but sometimes the truth of the words that come cause me to strain against their bitterness; i dislike their flavor. i find myself choosing an unnecessary silence. but i am no longer surprised by my own reticence--my soul's choosing to see only what it wants to see and hear only what it wants to hear. are we all quiet rebels and a stubborn pessimists in times like these, or is it just me?

*****

when dawn comes again, i strain toward the light like the african violets. strain to hear his voice as it comes whispering in over the waters, over the hills of the park, over the sleeping raccoons with their bandit masks and over the trees in their watch keeping.

he calls me to wake, calls all of this to wake. calls each created one and thing to its purpose. to be called by our true names is love. to hear his voice is the profound illumination, is the beginning of walking in the light. someone once said "only God can give a man this--his own name." as i begin hear mine, faintly, i remember again that he does not choose unnecessary silence. i remember again that we are to seek, to ask, to knock, to taste and see, to get up and walk. so today, i open my eyes to the light, and i strain toward it.

a few thougths about Ethiopia

2008-05-26T22:42:00.006-05:00

I've still been pretty busy since school ended, but am starting to get rather excited to cross the pond again. I re-read this book in the first two hours of jury duty...it didn't exactly carry me through the long day, but it was really to read it again. Dortzbach and Long have really condensed things to give you a great overview of the scope of the AIDS crisis and where it's headed, what has been done, where there is need for help, and what the church needs to do to respond. The church should be a community of sanctuary, healing, and hope for those who have been marginalized and are suffering. I am really excited to see how a group of counselors can go and learn from people who have been doing holistic work among communities struggling with these issues.

It is interesting that the story of Jesus with the woman at the well keeps coming up this year in different areas of my life, studies, and conversations. They write: "Jesus engaged compassionately and authentically with the woman at the well, drawing her into meaningful dialogue and addressing her primary need for living water. Likewise, we want to create an environment of safety and openness where people in any kind of pain or need can discover the hope that comes from living under the shelter of God's love as mediated by God's people." How can we even try to engage in these kinds of audacious acts of love and hope? I know I don't have it in me; but I know God desires to show his kingdom in these ways, and he will be faithful.

Before the first time I went to India, I prayed something like this prayer: give these hands something to do. It has been answered and continues to be, as faithless as I often feel, as weak and frustrated, as broken and wounded and poor. This soul can sing, these hands can carry, and this heart can break, if I am willing to receive what he gives.

"Yahweh" U2

Take this soul
Stranded in some skin and bones
Take this soul
And make it sing

Yahweh, Yahweh
Always pain before a child is born
Yahweh, Yahweh
Still I'm waiting for the dawn

Take these hands
Teach them what to carry
Take these hands
Don't make a fist
Take this mouth
So quick to criticise
Take this mouth
Give it a kiss

Yahweh, Yahweh
Always pain before a child is born
Yahweh, Yahweh
Still I'm waiting for the dawn

Still waiting for the dawn, the sun is coming up
The sun is coming up on the ocean
This love is like a drop in the ocean
This love is like a drop in the ocean

Yahweh, Yahweh
Always pain before a child is born
Yahweh, tell me now
Why the dark before the dawn?

Take this city
A city should be shining on a hill
Take this city
If it be your will
What no man can own, no man can take
Take this heart
Take this heart
Take this heart
And make it break.

cause i'm tired of my own blog

2008-05-12T00:26:00.000-05:00

it has been a lovely mother's day/duel parent birthday weekend. my parents are pretty much the best, and that's all there is to it.

three finals to go. not using time wisely. license plates were stolen right off my (jesse's) car, right in front of my house. a friend had to tell me; i probably would not have noticed. should cold feet still be happening mid-may?

this is totally pretty. one more chapter to review, then sleep. i like school a lot, but man, it's been a busy few months. enough of the stream of consciousness...we all need to get back to work. yes, that means you.

oh but wait, first listen to this. it will probably make you cry though, because it's really beautiful. and have you seen "wit"? (this song is in that movie)...we watched part of it in class during discussions about death and dying. intense, moving, and obviously worth renting and crying your eyes out over too. ok, enough of the depressing recommendations. this is good too, and won't make you cry at all.

and one last thing. friends don't let friends drink chai at 10:30 at night. seriously. i'm going to have to do about an hour of this before i sleep tonight.

The Show

2008-04-28T13:01:00.005-05:00

The concert was awesome!! Thanks so much, those of you who came, and those who sent prayers from afar. I think it is probably the first of hopefully many more. Lots of prayers and lots of God's goodness and mercy went into the night, and John did an amazing job as the event manager! For my part, I was proud of myself for not throwing up!! It was emotionally intense for me--lots of expectations and hopes for the evening.

If you'd like to see more videos of the show, go here. Pretty cool. John is awesome!

Neil's photos of the show (all the ones here) and of the folks who came were great. My dad did sound, mom was there being supportive and supplying cash boxes. Joanna came early just to help set up and lend a hand. It is a gift to have such talented and generous friends and family.

I think the night--the beautiful music, the friendship, the cause--were reflective of the Kingdom. Restoration of shalom--the rebuilding, the planting of gardens, the rescue of the oppressed, freedom from slavery, freedom to love and obedience.

Psalm 72:2-4

"He will judge your people in righteousness,
your afflicted ones with justice.
The mountains will bring prosperity to the people,
the hills the fruit of righteousness.
He will defend the afflicted among the people
and save the children of the needy;
he will crush the oppressor."

2008-04-24T16:16:00.008-05:00

My friend John wrote a nice reflection on beauty and justice in thinking about & getting ready for Saturday's Freedom Night. I'm really thankful for the little IJM group that I've been able to be a part of this year--discussions, prayer, attempting to advocate for justice on campus. I often get pretty antsy with where I am in life, wanting to fly off and get my hands dirty in the ways I see fit without really seeking what faithfulness and obedience look like right where I live my days. It's good for me to wait, to see God's faithfulness and calling in new ways. It keeps me on my toes.

photo courtesy of Dassler.

It has been a crazy few weeks...I'm having trouble coming to terms lately, I guess because these times feel full. Wednesday night after a lovely dinner with a dear friend, I spent about an hour in the perfect evening sitting at the Grand Basin in Forest Park. Just sat praying and watching ducks motor around the brightly lit fountains, listening to the night birds and the water. It was good to slow down and listen.

Last night after a long day of classes and studying there was fellowship, bavarian chips, good discussion, and even some much needed processing and prayer on a sidewalk in the Central West End. I see God meeting me in the desperate places with surprises. It reminds me of things I had forgotten about from around this same time last year. I have lessons I seem to always repeat, but God is patient and faithful.

Venue Change

2008-04-18T09:33:00.001-05:00

Freedom night will be here. Rad.

Earthquakes, baseball, last call song

2008-04-18T08:09:00.005-05:00

So the big news is that today many of us here in St. Louis woke up to an earthquake (5.2 at the epicenter, somewhere in Illinois). In spite of growing up in California with years of "duck & cover" drills, I sat in bed thinking, "Oh my, I'm having heart palpitations...Oh...My bed is shaking, the walls are shaking. Oh, it must be an earthquake." Just sitting there. No running to a doorway like a sensible, earthquake safety trained person. My instincts didn't kick in. I think the funniest part is that my mom thought to herself, "Why am I shivering?" Hahahaha. It made me think of elementary school, when we had to make sure each year we had our earthquake kits, complete with tiny tins of canned fruit & water, and those little sausages, and emergency blankets.

Yesterday I played hookie from day classes and went to the Cards game with Linz. It was lovely to catch up, soak in the sun (& receive an embarrassing sunburn) and watch people...and the game a little bit too. Linz's favorite part is the "last call beer song" that they play on the organ, and to which they show a video of the prancing clydesdales. Linz did a nice little dance...sitting down....with kicks and jazz hands...to the whole song. I especially liked the "bring it home" section. I liked the whole thing, actually, but I think the fellas behind us liked it even more.

Marriage and family was particularly good last night. Dr. Zink made the comment that the good marriage is not based on excellence or doing things right, but on faithfulness. That'll leave us something to chew on.

When I look at the painting of the girl watching the trees, I think of Renae and Heidi H, which is happy. The leaves are pushing the white blossoms off of the trees and they catch the fluid edges of the wind. It is a snowstorm of blossoms today.

2008-04-13T21:28:00.002-05:00

emile bernard. madeleine in the bois d'amour.

conjuring hope. sometimes it requires looking up at the newly blooming trees and praying desperate prayers. here's to trusting a God who answers. here's to praying for miracles. and believing they can happen.

2008-04-07T09:27:00.006-05:00

Psalm 4:4-8
"In your anger do not sin;
when you are on your beds,
search your hearts and be silent.
Selah
Offer right sacrifices
and trust in the LORD.
Many are asking, "Who can show us any good?"
Let the light of your face shine upon us, O LORD.
You have filled my heart with greater joy
than when their grain and new wine abound.
I will lie down and sleep in peace,
for you alone, O LORD,
make me dwell in safety."

it's on!

2008-04-03T10:52:00.002-06:00

The Cathedrals--take a listen at their myspace page!

I'm totally excited! If you are in St. Louis, please come!!

crush

2008-03-27T21:55:00.002-06:00

egon schiele: four trees

I have two semi-new crushes.

These beautifuls, and these ones too.

"My my my, my my my, my my." (from "skinny love")

Switzerland

2008-03-24T19:28:00.008-06:00

So...it was really a wonderful trip. I think I am readjusted to the time and slept well last night, but as we speak my eye is twitching, a sure sign of over-tiredness.

A few highlights:
Many beautiful things to see--climbing to the top and hanging out inside the holy, hushed Munster Church
Wandering around Kunstmuseum looking at Holbein, Klee, Miro, Van Gogh, Shiele
Tasty things: Luxembourglis, homemade dinners, raspberries & cream
Conversation over fondue
Prayers after dinner and the start of a revolution
Maniacal Lost-watching
Napping
Up to Engleburg on the train that was all like Lord of the Ringsy
Chillin and exploring with Linz

I also had a chance to read some great books, including The New Guide to Crisis & Trauma, which I think everyone should read (perhaps I am a bit biased, but it was really good and really practical). Also, The Jesus of Asian Women, which was also a great, compelling, and fascinating look at what women theologians in Asia are saying about the image of Jesus that has been favored by western male theologians, and why this image might be a little off-putting to some of the most abused, oppressed and marginalized women on earth.

Here are just a few of the amazing sights. These pics are just a taste. For more, go here.

Near the train station. Basel

Marketplatz. Basel

Walking near Basel, Barfusserplatz (Place of the Barefoot Monks--my favorite name)

From the top of Munster Church

Munster, Basel

Inside Munster Church, Basel.

Snacktime. Tea Room. Basel

On the train to Engleberg.

Going up the peak to see the mountains.

Inside the glacier cave. Engleberg.

Cuckoos.

Lucerne at night. Loveliness

At Kunstmuseum. Basel.

Arlsheim Cathedral.

Church and Monastery at Arlsheim.

Arlsheim Cathedral.

Drum Light. Basel.
Marketplatz at night.

today it's all about stealin.

2008-03-14T15:20:00.007-06:00

This picture is from lejson's flickr site, and it is called Cherry Blossom Sky. Nice, eh?

AND, I am totally stealing these quotes from two beautiful sisters here and here. Good stuff, real good stuff.

"May God bless you with discomfort at easy answers, half truths, and superficial relationships, so that you may live deep within your heart. May God bless you with anger at injustice, oppression, and exploitation of people, so that you may work for justice, freedom, and peace. May God bless you with tears to shed for those who suffer from pain, rejection, starvation, and war, so that you may reach out your hand to comfort them and to turn their pain into joy. And may God bless you with enough foolishness to believe that you can make a difference in this world, so that you can do what others claim cannot be done."
-Traditional Franciscan Benediction-

"...and grace calls out: you are not just a disillusioned old man who may die soon, a middle aged woman stuck in a job and desperately wanting to get out, a young person feeling the fire in the belly begin to grow cold. you may be insecure, inadequate, mistaken, or potbellied. death, panic, depression, and disillusionment may be near you. but you are not just that. you are accepted. never confuse your perception of yourself with the mystery that you really are accepted."
-brennan manning, ragamuffin gospel-

It has been a pretty amazing few months of getting to see these truths demonstrated to me by my friends and family. Things are really not the way they're supposed to be, but it's good to know some fighters. Wowza.

In closing: Dance dance revolution! (I don't really know why I said that.)

Forward.

2008-03-09T13:47:00.005-06:00

I have this quote hanging in my room, and it always reminds me of those periods that seem fallow and parched and dormant. They are precursors to the miracle of new things blooming; silent harbingers that what is in the works is too deep and too fragile to watch in the glaring light of day:

"The seed is in the ground
Now may we rest in hope
While darkness does its work."
Wendell Berry

I just read a short novel of his called Remembering. It's about grief, and life, and love. It was quite moving. Read it if you get the chance.

Also, read this post by my Mams. She's a wise and gentle one. I think she is secretly an Ent...without the weird, low, slow voice, of course.

Spring...you can almost taste it. There are green buds pushing up through the thawing ground. New life feels good after these many freezes....we get a chance to be warmed by the sun, we get a chance to hear the birds singing. I know, I know. I'm a sucker for the romance of it all.

I'm preparing for a big paper and two midterms this week. I should be studying presently, but am instead looking out my window and thinking about Switzerland.

I'll be leaving for Basel, Switzerland on Saturday to go visit Linz for spring break, courtesy of her company, CRB. It is a chemical engineering firm, and they are flying buddies (and spouses, whichever the employees choose) over to visit their forlorn employees who have been working far from home these last 6 months. And Linz, in her generosity, kindness and thoughtfulness, asked me to come. I am still speechless. I have not shared this news with many mostly because I feel kind of like a chump. I feel like a chump because I've yet to learn how receive gifts graciously, if at all. But friends are good and keep giving them. And God is gracious, and he does too.

I am meeting my friend Irum in a few minutes for a special treat. It is something that she described as perfection in a bowl--this hot chocolate soup stuff that they have at Bissengers. Now that's a great way to hang out. It's almost (almost) better than coffee.

That's all for now, I suppose. It's time for some Psych Disorders practice tests. Just wanted to say hey. To y'all. You know who you are. I'm thinking about you, and praying for you, and hoping your Sunday days and Sunday nights are just fine.

Read to the belly.

2008-03-05T16:44:00.006-06:00

Crazy cool nerdy study of the day:

"In a classic study of prenatal learning, pregnant women read Dr. Seuss's classic children's story The Cat in the Hat out loud each day for the final 6 weeks of their pregnancies. After the infants were born, they were allowed to suck on special pacifiers that turned a variety of sounds off and on. Each kind of sound requred a special type of sucking. Researchers found that the babies quickly adapted their sucking patterns in order to listen to the familiar story, but did not increase their sucking in order to listen to an unfamiliar story. In other words, babies preferred the sound of the story they had heard in utero." (Lifespan Development, Boyd & Bee)

some hopeful thoughts

2008-02-26T22:27:00.007-06:00

Klimt: Sunflower (courtesy of Olga's gallery)

"Eucatastrophe is a term coined by J. R. R. Tolkien which refers to the sudden turn of events at the end of a story which result in the protagonist's well-being. He formed the word by affixing the Greek prefix eu, meaning good, to catastrophe, the word traditionally used in classically-inspired literary criticism to refer to the "unraveling" or conclusion of a drama's plot.

...Though Tolkien's interest is in myth, it is also connected to the gospels; Tolkien calls the Incarnation the eucatastrophe of "human history" and the Resurrection the eucatastrophe of the Incarnation."

Pretty cool, eh? The word becoming flesh is the sudden turn of events that changes everything, and the Resurrection is God's crazy answer that ties up all the seemingly loose ends...so that rather than everything coming undone, the solution for salvation for sinners, the satisfaction of God's justice and complete restoration of all things comes together in one event. Weee-hooo. Eucatastrophic.

Also, one of my professors was talking today about how at the core of each person there are deep longings—which come out at times in the literature, art, music, legends—that are echoes of Eden. It is the intrinsic sense of deep beauty, loveliness in creation and in human life. Sense of what we were made to be originally & what we still see glimpses of in that beauty. There is also sense of mourning, grief, loss--that we have lost our way—that we are exiles, that we have wandered away from the garden. The human heart has longings for redemption—for things to be set straight--and this is where we engage a broken and hurting world: by acknowledging the longing; by entering into the great pain and exile with hope of knowing how the story ends. By telling stories of it. By making music that aches with the beauty of it. By painting and drawing and creating things that remind us of it.

I felt this strongly this Christmas while reading all of the chronicles of Narnia. The Last Battle is raging and the noble but beaten down warriors are brought into the renewed Narnia...they see all their friends they thought they'd lost. It is a great reunion and everyone is running faster than they've ever run--together--and with so much joy. Man, what a great eucatastrophe!!

In another class we've been talking about how sin "vandalizes shalom"--the God intended wholeness, integrity, peace, faithfulness, justice, beauty, goodness, righteousness, holiness, health, etc. As we are in Christ we are made new, and as communities of people who once were enemies and vandalizers, we are now brought near by God's great mercy. That deep longing for integrity and shalom are what lead us into God's heart for healing. The Gospel buys back the hearts of vandals so that they are shalom seekers--by loving God (& obeying his laws--thus not vandalizing shalom) and loving our neighbors--this integrity, peace, healing and joy are brought to bear in the lives of others.

2008-02-23T14:01:00.004-06:00

My friend April shared this moving post with me a few days ago and I'm still thinking about it. I began following this blog during the ebola outbreak, and my friend Heidi is working with these folks now. I like this worship because it remembers and grieves and hopes all at the same time:

Pain, by Aaron Strumpel

My life so far has been touched by your grace,
but there’s still things that shake me
I grow nearly faint when I see all the pain,
there’s times I wish I wasn’t so tender.

There’s AIDS in the world and cancer in my friends,
and I’m sick now, cause I’m scared
There’s people on the street too cold to feel their feet,
and I’m shaking inside cause they hurt.

Our kids just don’t know to live in your love
is all we need to be saved
It’s simple enough, is it just like they say?
Can we call on your name to get help?

When I hear your voice, I won’t harden my heart,
and I don’t want to turn away from you.
And it’s just round the corner
when every knee will bow,
and freedom will come

And it’s just round the corner
when you come in the clouds
and pain will be no more.

lovely song

2008-02-19T08:16:00.003-06:00

Rothko: greenblue

This is a great song. You'll like it, trust me:

Radical Face--Wrapped in Piano Strings.

Where did the bodies come from?

2008-02-18T07:42:00.006-06:00

I saw a disturbing 20/20 report investigating these bodyworld shows.

"Authorities in China and New York have opened investigations into allegations that a black market in Chinese bodies, which may include executed prisoners, is sending corpses to the United States for public display." (from the ABC news website)

St. Louis has been hosting what the Science Center is calling "the most successful exhibition in St. Louis history." There are two rival companies showing these plasticized human bodies in various athletic and everyday life poses in museums and galleries over the U.S. Supposedly the one here in St. Louis displays only bodies that have been expressly donated by the individuals for plasticizing. But the other company was very sketchy and suspect (the dude interviewed kept looking left and hesitating as he spoke, and seemed almost gleeful in the beginning of the interview talking about how the investors were making a lot of money on this venture (a killing, you might say...). When pressed, he couldn't really verify where the bodies came from. It seemed pretty obvious that he lied about visiting the scary meat-packing-like factory at the end of a slummy road in China where 20/20 taped people hunched over the bodies plasticizing them. The black market orders came to the states on freighters from China, and the cargo contents were labeled something like "plastic models for teaching"....um, well, no....they're (were) actually human bodies.

The 20/20 interviewer asked some hard questions about how they came to be making millions of dollars in profits using bodies of people whose families may not even know how, when or where they died. They had a rabbi on the show as well, who spoke about how disturbing it was that what we like to call curiosity about human anatomy and science is instead just morbid fascination that shows how little we honor human life.

Totally creepy or what?

people get riled up sometimes

2008-02-15T09:11:00.002-06:00

Interesting. One of my professors wrote this and the 190something comments on it have devolved into a rather incoherent catfight. At times in the name of God, and Jesus, and the Bible. Talking about interracial marriage slides into debates about Jesus' support of slavery. Read a few of the comments and you'll start to get an ulcer, and a headache, and start to be very surprised that we haven't already torn ourselves apart as a country--divided over things that Martin Luther King talked about fifty-ish years ago and that we try to pretend do not simmer right under the surface.

What?

His blog is interesting from the bits I've read...From experiences in other cultures, I get the feeling that we Americans have a tenacious love of personal rightness. So it's interesting to read because he stirs the pot about what you wouldn't think would be very controversial things, and everybody and their moms (well, it's directed toward "fellas", but that's another topic) comes outta the woodwork to give their opinion, or their opinion about what the Bible says, or their opinion of why his blog is a stupid waste of time and cyberspace. I don't really enjoy arguments because I find them somewhat pointless and exhausting, but I like to observe the interactions between people on there. It's not always right or always wrong or always pertinent, but it's interesting. And he admits all the time in class that he has a spelling issue, so don't let that bother you.

And sadly, or not so sadly, someone commented on his post about yesterday's response to the interracial marriage article with this. And it is kind of funny.

And now, I'm skype chatting with Jess, which is far more awesome than this! I'm outie!!

2008-02-06T07:15:00.000-06:00

I'm opening the library. Once the pain of rising early has worn off, I really love quiet mornings at the library and at Kaldis. Making scones, greeting the early morning studiers. The other day--our fake spring day--the birds were loudly welcoming the dawn as I drove to work in the darkness. It was such a nice way to start the day.

I was reading my friend Laura's blog and found this post about Craigslist interesting. I had no idea this was going on. I appreciate Laura's getting the word out there about the issue.

My professor has the flu (bummer), so class was canceled last night. It has been weird weather--muggy-ish and then rainy and cold and stormy. The ride home was traffic-filled, but Tanya and I had a nice long conversation about grace, and about wrestling (not the WWF kind), and I wasn't particularly sad to come home and study (a bit!) & watch Biggest Loser with Court.

Court sent me a link to this new music by Winterpills, which is reminiscent of the innocence mission. Their myspace playlist is my soundtrack this morning.

I solicited help from some friends because next week our school has a day of prayer, and our International Justice Mission group is helping to plan part of the liturgy. One of the professors is sharing about learning to lament, and my soul was fed as I read the lament below, written by Kristin sometime back. As an aside, her most recent post is quite funny and unexpected--about the slow work of building relationships, and pigeons. Anyways, this piece reminded me that intimacy with Jesus is the beginning of allowing God to break our hearts for injustice and oppression, and that as we come to the Savior with our mourning and lament, he hears and is present. Powerful stuff.

My friends, thanks for showing me what it means to follow Jesus--those of you who are willing to wrestle and weep and lament for the broken relationships and people God brings into your life. This is where radical transformation takes place. This is where God shows up. This is where it gets real. As Nacho would say, "Let's get down to the nitty gritty."

"Come and see Lord”

"Come and see and weep with me Lord. See their faces painted with cheap make-up. See the tenderness in their worn out eyes. Weep with me over innocence lost. Weep with me over torn flesh and broken hearts. Weep with me Jesus over girls trapped by fear. Weep with me for the mothers who have lost their daughters. Weep with me over your princesses that are treated like whores. Weep with me so that I know you are with them. Weep with me so that I know their suffering isn’t forgotten. Weep with me because when you weep with me it gives me hope. Your tears bring the safe place for the suffering of the world to reside. Your tears give me and the girls a place to put our doubt, our rage, our isolation, our fears. Come and see Jesus. Come and weep with me.

When I first walked down the street I fell in love with them. I saw the faces of the girls of Sonagacchie and I knew this is where God had me. Know five days I week I have the honor of hanging out with these girls work in the Red light district of Sonagachie. I get to know them and hear their stories and see their suffering. In some ways their suffering is so foreign to me. Many of them were tricked into the trade. An older woman would come into the village and say that they had work as a maid in the city. The parents would agree and send their daughters away. Then their daughter are beaten and raped into submission and made a sex slave. I see hundreds of girls when I walk down the street, each with their own story. They are looked at by society as whore and lower class citizens when most of them are just teenage girls robbed of their childhood.

How many times have I been the Martha? How many times have I come before Jesus and said, “ I am working so hard Jesus. Do you see me? I am working so hard to save these girls. I am working so hard to serve the poor. I am working so hard to be the hero for people! Do you see this?"

My reaction to the poverty and suffering I saw before me was to work harder, to do more, to not let my heart to break to much...to keep moving. And somewhere along the line I lost Jesus. I was so busy trying to prove my goodness and fix the suffering that I missed Jesus.

Then I read of Martha and Mary again in the story of Lazarus. Mary once again falls at the feet of Jesus. She weeps before him and cries out to Him. Then her friends who were mourning with Mary invited Jesus to “Come and see, Lord”. They invited Jesus into their suffering, into the death of their friend, into their hopelessness, into their pain, into their fear. They said, “Come and see.” And in His humility Jesus entered in. The Bible says, “Jesus wept”. The humility of our Savior to enter in. Jesus, the Son of God, the Savior of the world, the giver of life and breath, the maker of time...wept with his people."

Hooray!

2008-01-28T20:54:00.000-06:00

This post is in celebration of wireless at home! Thanks Pops!!!

Classes started today and I think it's going to be a good semester. I have Crisis & Transition, New Testament History & Theology, Psychological Disorders, Cross-Cultural Communication, and Humanity, Christ & Redemption. I'm really looking forward to seeing what the semester holds.

I was talking with a sweet friend today about anxiety, and she commented about how it seems like everyone around seems to be anxious about one thing or another. It seemed sad and strange to us that this would be the case, seeing that supposedly we have peace, joy and hope. We decided to pray together on a regular basis, which I'm very excited about, because I go through seasons of talking about prayer more than actually praying, which is a problem!! I read a really good book a few years ago called The Reign of Graceby Scotty Smity that dealt with all kinds of themes. Some words in it that have stuck with me:

"Do you know what the most frequent command in the Bible turns out to be? What instruction, what order is given, again and again, by God, by angels, by Jesus, by prophets and apostles? What do you think--"Be good"? "Be holy--for I am holy"? Or, negatively, "Don't sin" or "Don't be immoral"? No. The most frequent command in the Bible is "Don't be afraid." Don't be afraid. Fear not. Don't be afraid." N.T. Wright

This one's for you, Keen...Last Wednesday night closing the library I hit myself in the face with a door, which was exciting (but not as graceful as dodging the wire dangling precariously in the middle of NSC Bose Road, just before the slippery dog spot). It (the running into the door) made about a half inch split on my forehead and was kinda bloody, and funny after it stopped hurting. But it was a really fantastic day other than that, because of news from this favorite buddy of mine, and free dinner from Pei Wei.
This movie scene, which I'm watching right now, never fails to crack me up in a serious way: "Start the fire, the feet are goin....I make the pizza...Hips are always goin...Can't get enough hip!"

photo from: Prayers & Tears of Arthur Digby Sellers
Starting to dig these guys....thanks to a wonderful review recommended by Dassler and written by a talented fellow who makes his home and living in our hood.

Aight. Random post over. Time to get myself signed up for SKYPE. All you skype using kids out there, buddify me, ok?

2008-01-22T15:47:00.000-06:00

Go, go, go see this movie! It's a great story. The soundtrack is quite wonderful as well. I am looking forward to exploring music from some new sounds on there...including this band:
the moldy peaches.

We sent Jess off to Nepal, which was very happysad. He seems to be settling in and doing pretty well so far.

I've been enjoying reading The Chronicles of Narnia, and am currently smitten with the noble unicorn Jewel, from The Last Battle, who says to the King: "If Aslan gave me my choice I would choose no other life than the life I have had and no other death than the one we go to."

Talking with a friend last night, she pointed out this great passage when we were talking about trust: "1 Be careful to follow every command I am giving you today, so that you may live and increase and may enter and possess the land that the LORD promised on oath to your forefathers. 2 Remember how the LORD your God led you all the way in the desert these forty years, to humble you and to test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commands. 3 He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your fathers had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD. 4 Your clothes did not wear out and your feet did not swell during these forty years. 5 Know then in your heart that as a man disciplines his son, so the LORD your God disciplines you." Deut. 8:1-5

This first month of the year I have been reflecting on manna, and the means by which God provides in ways we could never expect. If you need a good kick in the pants, read through Exodus and Deuteronomy.

2008-01-22T15:10:00.000-06:00

2008-01-10T17:58:00.001-06:00

Not much to say, too much to say. Life feels a bit slow-motiony and surreal right now. Now we see imperfectly, but then we will see with perfect clarity. Is this--this struggle and wrestling, this sometimes straining sometimes half-hearted listening, this moment by moment surrender--what living faith and hope and love look like? It seems an embarrassing amount the time I feel deaf, baffled, befuddled, surprised, and at a loss. Occasionally, the bright light shines in my eyes and by his light I see everything (Lewis), the Words penetrate as deep as into marrow, and something deep within the tiny universe I walk around in reverberates with His voice, whirs from his fingerprints. The ache of eternity and a joy too profound to speak, written on our hearts.

I watch as those around me navigate this as well--learning and live in obedience, faithful to the calling God places in their hearts. Made alive by his love, there have no choice but to follow the Beloved's voice and trust his goodness.

"You have been given questions to which you cannot be given answers. You will have to live them out--perhaps a little at a time." Wendell Berry, Jayber Crow

"The voice of God is silence, exerting a pressure that is infinitely light, never irresistible." Paul Evodokimov

2008-01-02T19:21:00.000-06:00

People didn't believe me when I said I saw a rat the size of a small dog in my neighborhood in Calcutta. Whoa nelly. My friends who live there now found this in their bathroom on Christmas Eve. Squeaky the long lost reindeer. This is serious business, kids.

Jess & I took a 38 hour whirlwind megabus trip to Chicago. We were tired. It was cold. We spent lots of time walking around the big city and at Borders thawing out and drinking coffee. Our gracious friend Brian put up with my inability to figure out purchasing tickets for the el and our sleep-deprived moods, and we went out for Chicago style pizza at Giantonis (opposed to "hot cheesy cracker" that St. Louis calls it's signature "pizza."). Mission accomplished: one 10 year Indian tourist visa and a bit of relief for the travel bug.

My cousin Annie was in town this past weekend for the New Year, and we had a blast! Great coversations, thrifting at Value Village and the blind store, hanging out, a visit to Cahokia Mounds, cozy times in the house watching movies. She brought along the movie "Sweet Land" which was a beautiful story. Lovely, lovely time.

I worked on a series of Bible studies last semester and incorporated several songs from this band, and now they have a new album coming out. Their lyrics are poetic and worshipful. Supposedly, this guy is working on a new project too, and some of his songs from Chair and a Microphone Vol. 2 were included in my project as well. It was my favorite thing that I worked on this first semester of school.

Now, it is back to work at the ol library. It's mighty quiet in here tonight. One lone fellow, probably working hard on Greek. And I'm missing house church, which is sad. Not much to say. Chicago pics to come. Maybe.

Happy 2008, friends.

water

2007-12-23T21:32:00.000-06:00

This movie was visually stunning, had a beautiful soundtrack. It reminded me of little old ladies at Kalighat, and of walking the platforms of Howrah Station, and of sweet girls who roam up and down Park street. Even, maybe especially, when we read about the coming of the Prince of Peace, there is the ache and incongruity of those things that most need an exceptional hope. From Revelation 21:

"Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away."

He who was seated on the throne said, "I am making everything new!" Then he said, "Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true."

christmas in the city

2007-12-23T20:59:00.000-06:00

The day after finishing finals and projects, the mid-morning sun seems brighter than it has for a while. The bus in front of me on the road is dingy with gray splashes from melted snow. The ad on the back is a warm blue sky and white sand stretching far as the eye can see, and the people on it are tanned and beautiful, looking contentedly out toward the water as they lay sunning. I am stuck behind the bus for two miles; there is no passing. I have made the mistake of trying to do my bit of holiday shopping quite late. When I finally reach the store, people wander, saunter, and stumble and barrel through the crowded aisles with a myriad of facial expressions: tension, worry, bewilderment, manic fervor and exhaustion. I feel like I am already in a relatively surreal movie.

O come Emmanuel, and ransom captive Israel….I sing to myself, dodging the carts and wandering somewhat aimlessly.

I survive shopping unscathed and throw bags in my dirty car that already looks like I’ve been camping out in it for a while: down comforter in back waiting to be taken to the cleaners, various dishes and coffee cups, mail, books, and a box containing two orphaned china dolls who await a new home. The decorations strung over the road all down Delmar glisten and sparkle. They beckon me to re-enact George Bailey’s crazy run through the snow-drifted streets, yelling with grace-inspired fervor: “Merry Christmas, everyone! Merrrrrrry Christmas!”

Back home as dusk arrives. It is warm and dry from the quietly clanking radiators. The metro passes behind the house with a whoosh and clack. The tree is apparently worried that she will not get enough attention and consistently drops needles every few minutes, or anytime someone walks in the apartment upstairs, or anytime we come within a few feet of her. She’s a sensitive lass. We love her and water her, but she is still a bit temperamental. Our homemade ornaments hang from ever sparser branches, and it is mostly endearing with an ounce of pitiful thrown in, just for my old sentimental soul. Our very own Charlie Brown Christmas, as others are celebrating as well.

Later in the evening, we gather as a small community to practice advent. We have supper together. We read the scriptures aloud, we sing the familiar songs to the accompaniment of guitar and mandolin. The little ones shake maracas and beat drums to the upbeat songs, and they dance with twirls and flourishes as a grand finale for Silent Night. As the last notes resound, the spunky one pipes up a rather unanticipated: "I'm amaaaaaaazing!", topping her announcement off with one last giggly twirl.

After chatting and moseying on our ways, friends gather at the pub. Upstairs sipping pints at the long, heavy table, some of us secretly wish we really lived in the shire. There is laughter, there are stories, and there is even a bit of singing.

At midnight, I emerge from the smoky upstairs to meet eyes with other revelers downstairs, push through the door and into the cold, rainy night feeling disconnected, tired, and assaulted by the damp, frigid air. Home again, I collapse into bead and open to the turned down page, filling my head with Caspian, meals of apples and camp-outs in ancient ruins of castles. It is a delicious thing to be able to read whatever you want in bed, surrounded by a sea of pillows and blankets. Very late, just when I begin to think the city has muted and is ready to hibernate too, a car drives by with the bass pumping, rattling my windows. I look sleepily toward the twinkling lights and smile just a bit as the black and white pictures of a snow covered city fill my dreams.

Merry almost Christmas.

o night divine

2007-12-06T07:45:00.000-06:00

"Chains shall he break for the slave is our brother,
and in his name all oppression shall cease.
Sweet hymns of joy in grateful chorus raise we;
Let all within us praise his holy name."
O Night Divine, Adolphe Adam 1847

thanksgiving.

2007-11-22T19:46:00.000-06:00

Writing blog posts has, alas, been about the lowest thing on the priority list with classes, work and being kind of under the weather. In about two weeks the semester will be over, about which I'm quite excited.

Today is great...today is lazy and wonderful. We sat around the kitchen table drinking coffee and eating cinnamony pie crust things this morning, and then cooked a bit, and had a great meal with the fam, and we've been watching movies all day! This one and this one too. Now, my cheeks are warm, outside it smells like someone his their fireplace lit. The dog came back inside and brought the cold with her. I've been reading beautiful artsy craft blogs that have cool stuff like this, and will probably make a turkey sandwich in about two hours. Gobble.

I've been loving classes and am particularly sad that my Old Testament Prophets class is finished meeting. The website of my prof has all kids of cool free downloadable classes, if anybody's intereste. It's here: Thirdmill.org.

I'm looking into trying to find a way to visit this MTW ministry in Ethiopia and would love to be able to do some sort of counseling internship related to this type of thing. Read the article and it's enough to make you want to hop on a plane right now.

Court is coming home soon, which is good!! It's been rather quiet, creepy, and conversationless around the homefront since she left last weekend.

When I am "free" again from papers and projects, I'm looking forward to (thanks Jess) listening to this (hoorah, hoorah!!!!) and music from Grey Reverend and Mindy Smith's beautiful Christmas album. Oooh la la. And perhaps making some ornaments again!! Happy.

In the meantime, I'm thankful. Cause this is where it's at:

Psalm 103
Of David.
1 Praise the LORD, O my soul;
all my inmost being, praise his holy name.

2 Praise the LORD, O my soul,
and forget not all his benefits-

3 who forgives all your sins
and heals all your diseases,

4 who redeems your life from the pit
and crowns you with love and compassion,

5 who satisfies your desires with good things
so that your youth is renewed like the eagle's.

6 The LORD works righteousness
and justice for all the oppressed.

7 He made known his ways to Moses,
his deeds to the people of Israel:

8 The LORD is compassionate and gracious,
slow to anger, abounding in love.

9 He will not always accuse,
nor will he harbor his anger forever;

10 he does not treat us as our sins deserve
or repay us according to our iniquities.

11 For as high as the heavens are above the earth,
so great is his love for those who fear him;

12 as far as the east is from the west,
so far has he removed our transgressions from us.

13 As a father has compassion on his children,
so the LORD has compassion on those who fear him;

14 for he knows how we are formed,
he remembers that we are dust.

15 As for man, his days are like grass,
he flourishes like a flower of the field;

16 the wind blows over it and it is gone,
and its place remembers it no more.

17 But from everlasting to everlasting
the LORD's love is with those who fear him,
and his righteousness with their children's children-

18 with those who keep his covenant
and remember to obey his precepts.

19 The LORD has established his throne in heaven,
and his kingdom rules over all.

20 Praise the LORD, you his angels,
you mighty ones who do his bidding,
who obey his word.

21 Praise the LORD, all his heavenly hosts,
you his servants who do his will.

22 Praise the LORD, all his works
everywhere in his dominion.
Praise the LORD, O my soul.

dusk approaching

2007-10-30T16:03:00.000-06:00

Prophetic Mission: Ezekiel

2007-10-30T15:29:00.000-06:00

When Ezekiel sees the glory of the Lord, he falls facedown.

God gives him a scroll to eat. Words of lament, mourning, woe. Speak my words to Israel, God says. You are my watchman, you are to warn my people to turn from sin and to do what is righteous.

Sweet as honey, Ezekiel says as he eats the scroll.

Then the sound of rumbling (the beating of the wings of the living creatures)was around him as the spirit carried him away. He sat overwhelmed, unable to speak for seven days.

Ezekiel said: I went in the anger of my spirit, and the strong hand of the Lord was upon me.

Sweet as honey? I wonder about those words, thinking about the valley full of dry bones. God told Ezekiel to prophesy to the bones, to prophesy to the breath. These are the bones of the House of Israel, God said. These are the ones in their graves, without hope and without life because they have rebelled against the Lord.

Ezekiel told the bones that God would bring them back to life. Told the four winds to fill them with breath.

Sweet as honey. Redemption from exile. Forgiveness. Restoration.

God says: Then you will know that I am the LORD. Then you will know that I, the LORD, have spoken. Then you will know that I have done it.

Nerdy humor, birthays, etc.

2007-10-22T08:58:00.000-05:00

So I thought this was funny. I'm looking for a book for class that I refused to buy because it was ugly and technical looking (...my true criteria for which books I'm willing to buy is revealed: pretty and poetic, apparently?). Anways, I typed in "Focused Genograms" and up came the record, so YAY!, $20 less I have to be in debt for this venture. The funny part, now brace yourself, was that at the top of the screen the prompt asked me "did you mean focused ignoramus?" Bahahaha.

Gosh it's windy out right now. A little ominous, a little fallish. Men in hooded sweatshirts are attacking our front lawn with leaf blowers, pushing all of the fallen leaves further east. It seems like a funny thing for them to be doing on such a windy day. I would prefer to walk outside and be bombarded by a swirling whirling frenzy of leaves. Perhaps today in the very heart of the city there will be one gigantic leaf pile. I think I need to go wash my hands with some ghoulish soap, courtesy of Lindsey.

I've been taking long walks in and out of the city, alone and with friends, and sometimes with my midterm flashcards. It has been quite lovely. Court's birthday celebrations were so fun as well, including taaaaasty chilli she made, hanging out, and all around good times. HAPPY BIRTHDAY, COURT!

I'm studying, studying, studying for midterms, and best get back to that now, but not before I read April's beautiful poem again. Here it is, for your reading pleasure.

I Can't Do Anything with this Dark

It's a quarter to 4 a.m.
And I can't do anything with this dark,
sleep, read, pray.
I can see only as far as the bus headlights illuminate,
along a bumpy Moldovan road,
On my was to Chisinau for clarification
or further vision.

My fellow travelers sleep
and I am asleep-awake in the twilight
world of jetlag.
This road leads past the lives of the living poor
whose barren vineyards are eery shadows-
appartitions who trail us, me, mile after mile
in this dark,
and I can't do anything

A fog settles in and not even headlights
are enought to cut through what I cannot see,
along a bumpy Moldovan road
on my way to Chisinau.
The fog breaks
The bumps increase,
We turn a corner
and I find I still can't do anything with this dark.

We pass a man walking in the night
and I wonder where he is going all alone,
so late, so early, without a light.
Perhaps he knows what to do with the dark,
and that is nothing more than go straight.
"Go straight," I hear him say as we speed by,
Our lights catching his eyes reflection,
illuminating. "Go straight," he whispers.
I catch a gleam of his life, and
breathe deeply the beauty of this,
a night when I could do nothing.

Because my blog is depressing Liz

2007-10-04T11:41:00.000-05:00

From the Library...
I should be reading Thessalonians and studying a guide to psychological disorders, but I'm reading blogs and eating chocolate instead. It's Theological Libraries Month--Hip Hip Hooray!--which means we have colorful leaves hanging from the ceiling and candy on the circulation desk. And everyone is hyped up on sugar and a little bit happier.

There are predictions that fall colors will not come to St. Louis this year because it's been so blimmin hot. That's a sad thing. So I look longingly at stock photos of fall online and pretend that it's scarf and sweater weather, even though today's high will be close to 90.

I saw Over the Rhine last night and also a guy named Griffin House, who was quite good...sounding a bit like Ryan Adams with good songwriting. The concert was lovely, but left me feeling a little wistful and achey and distracted. But ah....what to do when these beautiful things work their way in.

My good friend April begins her two week stay with Word Made Flesh Romania today. I'm looking forward to seeing what God brings out of that time.

Check out SariBari's new website. Beautiful! Way to go Sarah, and my way talented roomie for taking pictures on her recent trip to Calcutta.

2007-09-24T15:23:00.000-05:00

There's a new movie coming out about human trafficking called Trade. I watched the trailer for it this morning and have been sort of undone since. Be prepared if you watch this....it's a bit intense.

Here's the New York Times article that inspired it. Warning, this, too, is disturbing, heart-breaking and graphic.

At the L'Abri conference I attended this past February, they talked about the connection between the story of John Newton's conversion and legacy fighting to abolish slavery in Britian and the need for people to stand up against human trafficking and the sex slave trade. I pray daily for my friends working in Bolivia and Kolkata and for the women that they know who have been rescued from and are still trapped in prostitution. But this morning is a reminder that today....in our "one nation under God," in our neighborhoods, these atrocities are happening.

So. I'm trying to keep perspective, but feel kinda overwhelmed. God, transform us into a people who call on your Spirit to give us holiness, power and obedience.

Amazing grace...with some lesser known verses and my emphasis.

Amazing grace-- how sweet the sound!
That saved a wretch
That saved a wretch
That saved a wretch like me.
I once was lost but now am found
Was blind but now I see.

Through many dangers, toils and snares
I have already
Have already
have already come.
Tis grace that brought me safe thus far
And grace will lead me home.

The Lord has promised good to me.
His word my hope
His word my hope
His word my hope secures.
He will my shield and portion be,
As long as life endures.

Yea, when this flesh and heart shall fail,
And mortal life
And mortal life
And mortal life shall cease,
I shall possess within the veil,
A life of joy and peace.

2007-09-15T21:18:00.000-05:00

Two weeks ago my friends welcomed me home from the first day of school as I walked up the back sidewalk. They'd been on the porch drinking wine. By the time I was up the steps and had dumped my bags and books, collapsing in a heap on the fire escape step, there was a glass of red in my hand. They listened and asked good questions, and I talked excitedly about things that had happened that day. I thought that night: This is something. They tell me I am someone.

*****

Tonight the smell of wood fires is all through the city. I drove on a two lane road with windows open to the cold, the crescent moon a crooked smile low in the western sky. I am tired but loving school. This is going to be a whole different kind of adventure. I am trying to be responsible and directed, but there are a few distractions:

Friends and family are wonderful, blessed, much needed distractions--sharing lunches, asking about classes, being stabilizing influences.

Gorgeous days, hot air balloon races.

The children's book section, where tonight I found myself wanting to read every Sandra Boynton book. Aloud. To myself.

And this weird issue called Narrator is a distraction as well.

I am blessed, discontent in good ways, and attempting to sit at His feet and worship when I find myself overwhelmed. I am missing friends that are (and will soon be) scattered across the globe. I remember each of their parts (the ones near, the ones far) as ministers of shalom and it reminds me to walk by faith.

*****

Narrator

I feel the need to mute you. I am having second thoughts about this whole seminary endeavor because at times you shout at me, and as we all know SHOUTING IS NOT ALLOWED IN THE LIBRARY!! Your banishment will just be for a time, so that I can be disciplined, complete required reading, appear mostly sane to the people around me. I'll put you in a shoe box and you can hang out under my bed eating dust bunnies for the next two years.

But here's the thing. Yesterday you told me that the sunlight that was coming through the window was just so. And because you put words to it, my eyes saw it, my heart took it in, and I got one more taste. You tell me now of my summer calloused feet on this warm wood floor, of the crickets serenading. There are things in here that feel like puzzles waiting to be solved just as soon as whatever mundane or epiphanal event that needs to happen happens.

You tell me: "I write your story."

I acquiesce and decide to keep you around; let you tell me bedtime stories about the cat that has been visiting our back porch lately: About her pink tongue lapping up the milk in the dish I set out, about her insistent meowing, her attempts to be a stow-away in our "no pets allowed" apartment. You have named her Casablanca, which I find endearing.

I throw a wink in your direction as a wry sort of apology. I'm sorry I told you to shut up. I see that you articulate my spirit's song. I hear you weave the words of grace and mercy that have been whispered by Someone Else into the events of my day when my heart's longings are insistent and impatient as baby birds.

You say to me reassuringly, and with hints of anticipation in your voice: Let's see what comes next.
And I reply: Yes, let's.

2007-08-28T10:30:00.000-05:00

The late shift, a train of thoughts.

Taking the trash out to the alley at midnight, broken glass strewn in front of the dumpsters looks like diamonds on the black pavement, sparkling under golden streetlights. There is hush, except the squirrels chatter and rummage. Distantly, in a glowing second story apartment, someone listens to YoYo Ma play Bach. Soundtrack to the story of their night: making dinner, drinking wine, talking. And of mine, too, I suppose: taking respite from the kitchen in the breeze of the summer night, sitting on a milk crate when no one is watching, and thinking.

I think of the playfully narrowed eyes and sly smile of a friend.

I think of the lyrics I heard earlier which were melancholy and somehow just right:
“And this ache is gonna break me love
Till you come back home, right or wrong.
There is no home without you.”

I think of a song I heard for the first time last winter. A million scattered dissonances coming to resolution at just the right instant so that it broke something in your soul in a good way, if that makes any sense at all. I decided it would be the sound you heard when you met Him face to face. It was as unbelievable and real as the heartbeat of the slow moving constellations that were once, long ago, the food of leaves, and would be again one day. The way things work in this chaotically and perfectly orchestrated world we walk around in.

I think of a writer I heard interviewed about her recently published novel. She said it was the pinnacle of her life’s work. It was the story she had to tell, and it had taken her ten years to write it. The interviewer asked what her current projects were, and she balked a little, and finally said that she could no longer hold a pen or type because her hands were debilitated with arthritis. I think of her and the awakening in my mind when in one of her earliest novels she wrote: “Whatever I see is plenty, abundance. I am the skin of water the wind plays over; I am petal, feather, stone.” Reading it was something fresh and astounding, a pure delight.

I think of those who, for whatever reason, can not do what they feel they have been created to do.

I think of a God who says: “I make all things new.”

I think of Summer saying the lines of act three, asserting herself with a raspy voice and blowing hot wind that makes us feel like we’re being baked like pies; she is the spoiled primadonna who smokes too much and wears too much make-up, which quickly becomes untidy looking. Sadly, most of us hope she will retire soon.

You, my dear—(I tell her gently, as she is rather irritable)—need to prop up those tired feet and think about taking a vacation! (This is my secret plan—a brilliant diversion!) Then Autumn can come and speak her lines—I know she is your understudy, is a little showy and mischievous (Ha! I think to myself) — but a little less intensity might be just what the doctor ordered.

I think that I need to get back to work.

I walk slowly under the fire escape and down the dark steps, through the back door & into the brightly lit kitchen. Rather than Bach, I am serenaded by the hum of the inefficient air-conditioners and the spraying of the dishwasher on the metal soup pots.

Just another night working the late shift.

2007-08-21T09:13:00.000-05:00

Love borders on the absurd...or maybe it even lives there, camps out like the Russian refugee we met in a state park in the mountains of California.

Driven by curiosity, fear-tinged idealism, and the knowledge that God's plan is for a kingdom of shalom, some follow the compulsion: to see what's behind door number two.

Cheers: to you who make decisions that leave you shaking in your boots (or chacos), and then come face to face with a God whose glory causes you to bow down and whisper: Holy, holy, holy.

“By day the LORD directs his love, at night his song is with me— a prayer to the God of my life.” - Psalm 42:8

Got the giggles

2007-08-15T23:43:00.001-05:00

If you're having a bad day, or even if you're not, watch this. Warning: it takes un peu de temps to load.

Meteor Showers

2007-08-14T10:12:00.000-05:00

Summer nights....

* Coffee & conversation

* Waiting for Guffman

Corky: It kind of reminds of me the olden days, in Paris, when men use to slap each other with white leather gloves, you know, "Oh, D'Artagnan, how dare you speak to me that way". And Smack Em'.

Corky: Here's the Remains of the Day lunchbox. Kids don't like eating at school, but if they have a Remains of the Day lunchbox they're a lot happier.

* Thanks to Jen S. for inviting us to get out of the city to view the Perseid Meteor Shower.
We saw some good shooting stars. We talked about strange childhood thoughts. We hoped that small planes passing overhead were not Russians coming to take over or drop rabid farm dogs on us.

Check out my friend Beth's post in "Just Between Us" about returning to Kolkata. It's wonderful.

It's too hot to chew gum.

2007-08-09T17:49:00.001-05:00

I've been informed that my last post was depressing. It was supposed to be a bit of a joke, mostly for those of us who tend toward the melancholy and the laugh at ourselves soon after the mawkishness fades.

I have been feeling a little unable to blog, but it has been far too long, and the domesticated birds are utterly desolated by now.

So. Just when I thought I'd seem my last fireworks for the year, we happened upon a fountain down the street from Coffee Cartel hanging out after housechurch. It was luminescent and dazzling. We spent some moments transfixed. Dassler rescued a cicada from the water and we took turns holding it and examining its "otherness"--the stained glass window wings (Laura), the melancholy eyes, the one wounded leg.

I have been surprised over and over this year at how much house church as been a blessing and stabilizing influence in my life. There really is no pretense. We come together to eat, to sing, to cry, to read those Holy, Living scriptures, to group in twos and threes and talk to the Father. It is such a blessing that sometimes I wait for the other shoe to drop, so to speak. God, thank you for this gift.

We come to him tarnished, mostly dross. Only a loving God would make some of the polishing, burning, and reshaping such a delight to the soul.

A haiku, for fun. For those of us who enjoy counting syllables. Missing season---unless the liturgical calendar counts.

Pentecost

Spirit descended.
Presence in the upper room:
Yahweh, a bright flame.

The cicadas outside these windows are singing, and so are the leaves, if you listen closely enough. Cheers.

Sadness of Domesticated Birds

2007-07-17T14:42:00.000-05:00

i love.
* summer storms * conversations with friends * dove unconditional chocolate icrecream+ben & jerry's cinnamon buns (wow. try it.) * summer peaches * "gotta have you" by the weepies * good fiction

This is a really long excerpt from Everything is Illuminated, but it is worth reading. It's a great book, very different from the film version, a bit disturbing at parts, unusual and moving. This part sort of makes you want to laugh and/or cry, or at very least, say, "I've felt that":

The following encyclopedia of sadness was found on the body of Brod D. The original 613 sadnesses, written in her diary, corresponded to the 613 commandments of our (not their) Torah. Show below is what was salvageable after Brod was recovered. (Her diary's wet pages printed the sadnesses onto her body. Only a small fraction [55] were legible. The other 558 sadnesses are lost forever, and it is hoped that, without knowing what they are, no one will have to experience them.) The diary from which they came was never found.

SADNESSES OF THE BODY: Mirror sadness....sadness of makeup; sadness of physical pain; pins-and-needles sadness; beauty sadness; sadness of clothes; sadness of the quavering eyelid; sadness of a missing rib; noticeable sadness; sadness of going unnoticed...

SADNESSES OF THE COVENANT: Sadness of God's love, sadness of God's back; favorite child sadness; sadness of being sad in front of one's God; sadness of the opposite of belief; what if? sadness; sadness of God alone in heaven; sadness of a God who would need people to pray to him....

SADNESSES OF THE INTELLECT: Sadness of being misunderstood; humor sadness; sadness of love without release; sadness of being smart; sadness of not knowing enough words to express what you mean; sadness of not having options; sadness of wanting sadness; sadness of confusion; sadness of domesticated birds; sadness of finishing a book; sadness of remembering; sadness of forgetting; anxiety sadness...

INTERPERSONAL SADNESSES: Sadness of being sad in front of one's parent; sadness of false love; sadness of love; friendship sadness; sadness of bad conversation; sadness of the could-have-been; secret sadness...

There is also sadness of watching fireworks, sadness of missing someone you've never met. Can you add any to the list? I'd like to know.

So right now I'm chillin, working, house & dog sitting until tomorrow. Summer will be over before we know it. Maybe I have sadness of mid to late July, or sadness of not having seen many fireflies this year. Just a tinge.

Fireflies image:
From the following article:
Nanotechnology: Nano-oscillators get it together
Pritiraj Mohanty
Nature 437, 325-326 (15 September 2005)
doi:10.1038/437325a

2007-07-13T14:56:00.001-05:00

This is cool. A friend at work passed along this bluegrass Led Zeppelin tribute and it is very summer road trip music-y. Give "Going to California" a try.

Gosh. This is lovely. Haven't seen the movie yet...not sure if I want to delve into what heard described as "realistic romance"...wait... who am I kidding? Of course I do. Scrum-diddly-umptious music: "Gold" and "The Hill"...

Updates:
Completely enrolled in seminary.
Starting classes end of August.
Quite excited to already be part of a study group called "ANT" or maybe "TAN" or maybe "GNAT".
Having minor hourly freakouts about financing said education.
Bizarrely addicted to Facebook now. Really. This has to stop. But it's so fun!
Happy to be in St. Louis for some hot humid days.
Missing out on the Heirendt & Wise Family reunions.
Praying for my friends & Jess at the WMF staff retreat these next 10 days.

Meditations, prayers for friends (oops...forgot to mention the prayers are written by other people...both are from a prayer book (i'm not trying to plagarize! oops!!):

Mpwapwa, Kibakwe, the open road

2007-07-05T19:56:00.000-05:00

Some photos to start....also check out a few from the collection by clicking on the flikr montage.

Amsterdam, Dar Es Salaam, Arusha

2007-07-05T19:10:00.000-05:00

Home

2007-07-02T12:41:00.000-05:00

There's nothing like coming home. The few times I've done this my head swims like the dickens and somehow I keep being surprised by that fact. As it turns out, I was so excited to not have to work until Friday, which I didn't at all expect. It has allowed me to chase my tail around my apartment before I even finish my second cup of coffee--starting organization projects & leaving the house in a borderline frenzy to wander aimlessly around target to buy toothpaste. It is not always easy to slow down and rest, or to regain your bearings.

In the coming days & weeks I plan to try to process a little more of what this trip meant, what I learned. Sooner rather than later I will post some of the pictures of the places we visited and the people I met. This trip was a great blessing--some night wrestling matches, some unexpected and wild experiences, some tearful goodbyes. I get a little overwhelmed when I think of all of the things buzzing around in my head that have not been articulated or have been haphazardly shared with patient and caring friends & family, who let me tell them about some of our adventures already. That part is a gift in itself, so, thank you for that.

The thing that I'm thinking about right now is the several church services we were able to attend. The Anglican church, Emmanuel, which I sadly never got a picture of (drat!), is a small stone church set at the base of the mountains. It looks more like it should be in the English countryside than in the tropically green hills of Morogoro. When you walked in, there was a hushed holiness, light streaming in the long, narrow windows. The kneeling pillows were maroon and tattered. The liturgies we were handed as we walk in were salmon pink and had been held in a hundred praying hands. The chairs were simple, creaky, wooden and varnished, and most likely hand made at a local carpentry shop. It was a little musty, a little humid. The hymns and praise songs echoed through the high rafters--we sounded like a thickly accented choir.

Saul, the pastor of the English speaking service, led us in hymns. He is in his 30's and has a wonderful, friendly, jolly presence. Each week he invites everyone to stay for "some bites" after church--ju-weese and kay-kees (juice & cake), and of course a cup of tea. When we took communion, we took turns lining up at the altar and being handed the elements, a practice which has not been much a part of my non-denominational and later Presbyterian church experiences of taking communion. He said as he handed me a thin wafer: "Angela, the body of Christ, broken for you."

The body of Christ in Tanzania. My friends, who live in villages called Kibakwe & Chiniqua, my friends who also meet for home group on Wednesday nights. God's kingdom meeting together in unroofed church buildings, in villages where the red dust covers everything, where the prayers and songs push against your sensibilities and render you again a child.

I have so much to learn.

"There's a communion wafer moon
Dissolving on the blue tongue of the sky

Sometimes the whole world is nothing
So much
As an altar inviting us
To kneel"

Copyright 2007, Linford Detweiler

Welcome to Seabus 1

2007-06-21T06:33:00.000-05:00

Well well well. The trip to Zanzibar was pretty incredible...I decided that it's a good thing that my friends are spontaneous and adventurous, because otherwise I'd be missing out on a lot of fun experiences and beautiful sights. We were able to take trip to Zanzibar courtesy of Blair's mom. It was a generous and wonderful gift, and we really needed the rest.

We took a short flight from Dar Es Salaam to Zanzibar at the last minute on Saturday evening. We ended up flying 20 minutes over the ocean just as the sun was setting. It was incredible and beautiful. We spent two days gettng lost in Stone Town's meandering alleys. I thought I had a good sense of direction until I went there--I must have done the same circle three times in one day. That place is mysterious and wonderful. We also got to spend one day on the beach, which was great.

The best and worst part was definitely the memorable journey on Seabus 1, the ferry back from Zanzibar to Dar. We did some running around town in the morning and made the ferry at noon. The water has been very choppy because it's the end of rainy season, but really we had no idea how bad it could be. The ferry was like a huge yacht thing, and we spent 5 bucks more to be upstairs in the AC part rather than with the live chickens. The boat started out and it is a two hour journey. I was content watching some kind of Jean Claude Van Dam movie where he was busting things up in Thailand. It was very dramatic and entertaning. Shortly thereafter though, people started utilizing their little black plastic bags that were actually labled "sick bag".

I have learned new things about the severity of my stubbornness and think I will forever be changed because of this boat ride. When the man was handing out these nice bags, I refused, thinking: If I take a bag, that means I will be admitting that I don't feel so good. I refused the bag, put on my headphones to drown out the sounds of other passengers who had started wretching, and looked out the window practicing deep breathing exercises. My lips were pressed tight together. My plan was working.

About 15 minutes into the ride, my poor companion Blair was the color of something...je ne sais quoi....not human. She got up from her seat to go out for air, and to not be sick in front of me. I continued to be passably ok for the next 10 minutes or so, all the while thinking that if I concentrated hard enough, I would not be sick. Then, I turned around to look back and find Blair because I was rather worried. As I turned forward again, it was the last straw. Not having the sick bag, I covered my mouth and leaned over toward the wall. Yes. Vomit. All over my left leg and down the wall, on my hands. This is quite humiliating, but I tell this story because even as I was crying from the disgust of sitting in this plastic seat on Seabus 1 with puke all over my hands, Blair sat back down and saw the state I was in. We both started laughing rather uncontrollably. I think people thought we were fully crazy. It was so funny and so awful...everyone being so sick, the smell of their sickness, my own re-lunch wafting up toward me every instant as I continued to fight the nausea.

Blair was sweet. She retrieved an anti-bacterial wipe for me, and sat next to me even though I smelled like vomit. Now that's a real friend.

It was just so funny. Welcome to Seabus 1. Welcome to puke-fest 2007. Seriously, I don't know if I will ever ride a ferry again. Perhaps I will. But for sure, I will be taking one of those sick bags.

We had more adventures getting from Dar back to Morogoro. We missed the last Hood bus (which are the big busses) and crammed into a packed bus that was not much bigger than a mini-van. Blair defended my honor by telling some over-friendly young men who were asking about my boyfriends (since I didn't have a husband) that I was married to Jesus, and I think maybe that I was a nun. They were much more polite, stopped touching my hair and gave me personal space after that, which was nice. We arrived back in Morogoro last night at 10:30 pm glad to be alive (these buses are known to pass on blind curves, and at one point there was a fight about fares, and people hanging off the outside as we drove along at 30 miles an hour) and thankful for little things, like showers and clean sheets. It really puts things in perspective to be covered in vomit.

Today being back and seeing the facilitators smiling faces and warm greetings was even better than vacation. I am starting to realize that I have to say goodbye to them in a few days, and that is sad. I'm praying for the next few days to be a blessing for the Arusha seminar participants (who are coming here to Morogoro for the workshop....no travel until next Thurs. when we return to fly out of Dar) and for those of us working together to serve them. God is good.

Seminar complete

2007-06-11T08:45:00.000-05:00

We closed the seminar last night in a flurry of certificates and chaos. There were dramas and songs, there was a feeling of tiredness, but also brotherhood, unity, accomplishment. There were things that we’d planned that didn’t get done or said, but more importantly God brought to the forefront some other issues that were completely necessary and met great needs that we hadn’t even known about. One unexpected issue that was addressed was that men are not attending church, are not being ministered to. There was study of scripture about what it means for men to be Godly leaders in their homes and churches and communities, and several participants left feeling called to begin to teach and encourage men in Christ-centered leadership and nurture their spiritual growth in small groups within their parishes.

In all, it felt like the Holy Spirit was guiding and leading, that people were touched, that they were thankful and convicted. I personally learned more than I can begin to articulate about the dynamic of the body of Christ coming together to search out and encourage one another about following Christ, ministry, and being messengers of healing in the midst of fear and suffering. And how to even begin to grasp or practically live within the hope we have in Christ in the face of such a disease? We need guidance and humility; we need faith.

One of the small groups shared the song they had composed:
“If we go to the mountains, we will not escape.
If we go to the good doctors, we will not escape.
If we go to the clinics, we will not escape.
We ask: Lord, have mercy on us.”

I had to make an effort to not fall apart as they shared these songs. It was humbling and moving. I turned to a friend and told him that I think Tanzanians are some of the best people. As I stood in the back watching these new friends, the words of a song (I think it is Kirk Ward’s) were in my head as a prayer: “Restore us, O Lord Almighty. Make your face shine upon us. Restore us that we may be saved.”

It has been overwhelming to begin to hear the stories beneath the stories about AIDS. The published infection rate for Tanzania is at about 7%. But talking with Rachel Tarling, the doctor in Mpwapwa who has built the birthing center, we found out that it is much, frighteningly, higher. They have received blood donations for their center which have to be screened for use. They said that among those who donate, the numbers are probably closer to 30% that come back HIV+.

There are many laws protecting those who may be infected, so from what I understand, people cannot be told that they have tested positive unless they ask. A guest speaker came to share with us in the seminar about voluntary testing and counseling—urging the people who have been under a blanket of silence, terror, suspicion, and denial—to be counseled, and then tested. He understands the importance of counseling before you even test, understands that these who feel they have received their death sentence must have some idea of how to pick up and continue on, how to tell their families, how to live with and combat the disease that will eventually ravage their body.

Lord have mercy. Bwana uwe na rehema. My heart grieves.

There is mourning in the hearts of these gentle, friendly and joyful people. As I spend just a few weeks here, standing with, learning from and walking among those who have lost friends and family, among some who may themselves be infected, the word of God comes to my mind for this broken part of the body of Christ. It must be our hope here and in the brothels of Calcutta, and in the streets of Nepal, and in the homeless shelters of St. Louis, and in the cosmopolitan streets of New York where others face the affects of AIDS on their lives:

Jesus said to her: “I am the resurrection and the life.
He who believes in me will live, even though he dies:
and whoever lives and believes in me will never die.”
(John 11:25&26)

Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed,
for his compassions never fail.
They are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness.
(Lamentations 3:22&23)

I called on your name, O Lord, from the depths of the pit.
You heard my plea: “Do not close your ears to my cry for relief.”
You came near when I called you, and you said, “Do not fear.”
(Lamentations 3:55-57)

Have mercy on me, O God,
have mercy on me, for in you my soul takes refuge.
I will take refuge in the shadow of your wings
until the disaster has passed.
(Psalm 57:1)

and, courtesy of the chaplain of CTS library:

The Lord is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble.
He knows those who take refuge in Him.
(Nahum 1:7)

taste and see

2007-06-11T08:42:00.000-05:00

We are at the church property, which is a collection of classrooms and offices, a school and a sanctuary arranged around a yard and one large tree, which we shelter under as people slowly arrive. It has been raining all morning here, and I am learning to practice the word “mvua.” I see children walking past with umbrellas that look like giant lollipops, and a man riding a bicycle outside the gate, sitting perfectly upright with an umbrella in one steady hand.

Later, after hours of meetings and translation about the upcoming seminar, I find myself unable pay attention. We hear the students released from classes at midday break and about a hundred four year olds come bouncing out into the church yard in their blue school uniforms laughing and dancing outside our windows. One of the church officers who is a year away from retirement seems to be as distracted as I am. He is most delighted by the fact that chai has arrived. It is served with milk and sugar, and we each receive two small homemade packets of sugared & roasted peanuts. He eats them one by one from the bag, closing his eyes as content as a lion lazing in the sunshine, and I half expect him to begin to purr. When he finishes the tea and snacks, he dozes a bit, contentedly, and sniffs awake to resume note-taking. He is old, gentle, pastoral and personable, which I decide is a winning combination. I am smitten in a way and think that if I had had a different life, one in this far away country, he could have been my grandfather.

In the church sanctuary across the courtyard, the choir practices music for a wedding that will take place tomorrow. The joyful music pours in the windows, creating further distraction. The rain stops and the sun comes out strong and bright, making the trees glisten, making the room begin to feel steamy and sleepy. We yawn and stretch, continuing to hear reports from parish leaders. There are small groups collecting money for soap and nutritious food for orphans and widows, for those dying of a disease that has many euphemisims and many victims. I am humbled by the reports of these faithful ones who have so little to begin with, who cannot afford to feed their own famililies and yet continue in obedience, in sacrifice, in faithfulness, in love.

Give us this day.

As the clouds roll out over the mountains behind us, the powerful sun starts to make dust and ruts of the red dirt in the courtyard. I think of the muddy roads we took to visit some new friends in the village last week who are the hands and feet of the ministry reports we’ve been hearing. Travel on these roads is arduous, but nothing compared to the labor that people who live in the remote villages perform several times each day just to carry water from the river to their homes, to chop fire wood, to harvest their fields of maize and sweet potatoes, to visit the sick, to go to small group.

We are out of touch. Sometimes it feels as if the heaviness of all of these burdens together in one place should send the earth spinning off into some new orbit. We are closer to the sun here—I burn, I shield my eyes. I feel the need to ask for re-centering, for strength to hear the struggles and injustices, for wisdom. I pray to the only one who promises these things.

Later in the week at the beginning of one of the workshop sessions, Bernard said to me: “Have you noticed something about the people here?”

“Yes,” I said, “They love to sing.”

Everyone in the meeting hall stands, and a quiet rhythm finds its way out of these same feet and hands who carry the compassion and love of Christ to the suffering. Faith leads a song and her whole face lights up—“Lord, you are our home”—she sings out, and raises her eyebrows as all respond. Dennis, the pastor on our team, is in front smiling and clapping, doing his own little swaying dance. He has been in seminary in St. Louis, away from his wife and children, from his brothers and sisters, away from beautiful, simple, familiar songs. He is clearly thankful to be back in the midst of these joyous harmonies, surrounded by the warmth and gentleness that seem to be the most ready demeanors here.

I listen to the song—the Swahili words which I am just begining to understand—the idea which is elusive and obvious, frightening and reassuring all at the same time: Lord, you are our home. My feet begin to shuffle out the rhythm. I look at Faith and Dennis, Naomi, Sedock, Octavian, baby Harriet. I think: As much as I feel ill-equipped, afraid, overwhelmed, and full of disbelief, this is what faith means: to take one step, and then another. To not take them alone. To give praise to the one who holds all of us in his mighty hands. And to remember my home.

Morogoro Seminar

2007-06-09T01:12:00.000-05:00

Been a bit too busy to email and update, but things are going well here. Today is the last day of sessions during the first workshop. Tomorrow we will have a big ceremony at the church and a celebration meal. Overall, I have been having a hard but wonderful time. I'll have to share some more reflections when I can go to a cafe to hook up my laptop.

It has been an interesting few days in my mind of cultures clashing--that is the culture of God's kingdom vs the culture of man. We've talked a lot about how we cannot change without the Holy Spirit helping us, but that requires surrender. When it comes down to it, we all have idolatry of the heart in one way or another, and have to wrestle with why we continue doing things that hurt us, why we choose sin when deep down we know God's way is safer, healthier, better in every way??

I have a billion things floating around my mind right now. I'm thinking about how amazing it is to see the Peacemaking curriculum applied to the issues of stigma with AIDS (kristin, beth, sarah--I want to talk to you so bad!! You're going to love this!). I'm thinking that it is astounding to hear that the G8 summit decided on $60 billion worth of aid for Africa to deal with AIDS, tb and malaria. I'm thinking about how political the issue of AIDS is--how little the people in the villages actually see of the aid money, how much of it is lost in bureaucracy and programs that distribute condoms, but don't deal with heart issues, deal with the unspoken aspects of the disease. God, give us wisdom.

On another note, the people here have been a blessing as I begin to know them even a little bit. I have more thoughts on that, but it will have to wait.

Pictures coming, hopefully.

news

2007-06-03T07:13:00.000-05:00

So the workshop is getting off to a start today. It has a been busy few days for us arranging the order of seminars and doing running around to get things ready.

Sorry no pictures yet...had some uploaded and tried to email, but after waiting 40 minutes, the connection reset, and I had no time to start over! Dag nabit. So, I rassled with the idea of waiting and trying again, but needed to deliver some materials to the facilitators. Alas. It will have to wait.

We're really excited to have Judy Dabler here, who taught all of us (Blair & myself, Dennis and the facilitators) the Peacemaker curriculum in an overview format for over three hours this morning. Bless her! She's only a little jet lagged too! The facilitators (10 Tanzanian Christians with a lot of spunk and heart) will be teaching the Biblical peacemaking curriculum in one session per day. It is a new part of the curriculum that will apply in the areas of personal discipleship, small group facilitating and teacing, HIV/AIDS (with stigma rduction and conflicts related to H/A) and in leadership development. It sounds confusing right now, but I'm looking at the schedule and it's going to be great.

Must go now, hope you friends are well. Keep it real. Peace.

Settled back in Morogoro

2007-05-28T03:17:00.000-05:00

Hi all....

We are having a great time so far here in Tanzania. It is a beautiful country and the people are also warm and hospitable. After a day and a half in Dar Es Salaam, we took the bus to Morogoro, arrived late, stayed one night, and left the next day for Mpwapwa. A huge blessing was that the Bishop of Morogoro let us use his land rover rather than having to take the bus, so we were able to make lots of stops and have a.c.! Amazing!
Our driver, Stanley, was a great tour guide and mwalimu (teacher). We got to stop at a side of the road market and buy sweet potatoes from a bunch of beautiful women and girls. Over all, it was quite and adventure just getting to Mpwapwa.

When we arrived, we visited old friends of Blair & Kevins, Godfrey & Rachael Tarling, missionaries from the UK who have built a clinic called St. Lukes. Godfrey is a builder and Rachael a doctor, and they have two kids in boarding school in the UK and Timothy, their six year old, still at home with them. They are pretty amazing people, and their love for and commitment to the community is evident. It is primarily a clinic for women and children--a birthing center--because many women still die in childbirth in their villages. They can come a few days before delivery and have a clean place and good medical care.

Our meetings in Mpwapwa were with the Tanzanian small group facilitators. There were 9 who were able to be there, these are all Christians who were chosen by their priests/parishes as people who had already exhibited leadership and service to their communities. They have received small group training in the previous workshops, and they will be the ones facilitating the HIV/AIDS education and small group activities, discipleship training and leadership development that will happen at the two workshops.

We had introductions, went over the new curriculum (Judy Dabler and the Peacemaker curriculum), talked about what they have been doing in their own communities with the small groups they lead there. Many are visiting the sick, taking care of orphans, doing H/A education dramas and choir performances. Mzee Wondo (Elder Wondo) has received more training in stigma reduction and is going to share with the entire workshop some of the things he has learned. The facilitators are lively and I really enjoyed just watching how they care for one another and how excited they were to see one another.

Our return trip from Mpwapwa was adventure filled as well. We said our goodbyes to the Tarlings and got on the road. Two of the facilitators joined our trip to one of the villages on the way out of town. There, in Kibakewe, we visited Father Dennis' (the priest we ware working with) house and saw the church he helped to build.

We also took a side trip to a village of one of the facilitators, Edwardi, to see if he had received the letter and would be able to come. That was only about a two hour detour!! (In Dennis' mind--5 minutes from the main road!)

Back on the road for an hour and a half, we took another side trip to an orphanage at Berega. It was about 25 km inside the bush off the main road. Ute, a German missionary, has been there for 9 years, but the orphange was established in teh 60's. It's actually more like a care center--an amazing idea. The crucial thing here is that if the mother dies in childbirth, the baby has to be fed with formula. Most formulas cost around $5 for a small can, which you go through in about 3 days. Most laborers make less than $30 a month, so village families have literally no way of feeding these babies. This home takes the babies in for the first two years of their lives to help get through that critical stage.

They also have started really incredible thing of having a young girl (12-20 years old) from the baby's family come to live at the home to be like the nanny. The girls receive a place to live, food and education about how to care for the children, and the baby then makes attachment to a member of their family. This enables them to readjust to life when they return home because they have attached to the girl who cares for them. It was both heartbreaking and a blessing to visit this home.

Yesterday was church. We missed the Swahili service (at 7 am!) and went to the English service. We spent the afternoon with Dennis, his wife Mama Elia and their kids. It was a relaxing day up the mountain.

Best go now, this is enough. Sorry no pictures yet, will get there soon.
Hope you all are well; please go to Shakespeare in the park for me!

shalom.
ange

2007-05-21T02:37:00.000-05:00

Hello from Dar es Salaam!

We hit the ground running, and so far it has been great to get to see the beautiful country of Tanzania. I arrived in Arusha with no problems--my luggage arrived with me as well, which is pretty amazing!

The first night we stayed at a small guest house, and from there, set off to Tanga to meet with Father Baji, an archbishop from the northern area. It was good to hear what his church as been doing in health care and spiritual care for the people in their parishes.

We stayed the night there and set off the next day for Dar es Salaam. We're staying here a few nights and i'll update later because my time is about up!

and so it begins

2007-05-16T23:07:00.000-05:00

images from Wikipedia

I leave tomorrow morning for Tanzania. I'll be flying STL to Michigan to Amsterdam to Arusha (near Kilimanjaro). I'm pretty tired right now, and I haven't even packed yet. I've "gathered" things...which basically means the floor of my sun room and my bed are a giant freaky mess. But I am terribly excited and happy to see what God is going to do in these seminars, and feel like I have so much to learn, so much possibility for sharing with friends in Calcutta & KTM.

I didn't get a chance to hang out with everyone I wanted to in these last few crazy days, and that is a big regret and sadness. I look forward to seeing folks when I return and enjoying a long summer evening or a walk in the park or a cup of joe.

Will try to post regularly here.