you mus' not know

Jigsaw falling into place

In 23 days I'll be beginning the multiple flights with the end destination of Chiang Mai, Thailand. I'll be traveling with one of my dearest friends, Jill. She and I both spent time overseas during the same season, and often daydreamed about what it would be like to be working together in those faraway places. We'll be traveling for 2 weeks, visiting ministries and hopefully doing a little sightseeing. We'll be staying in a home for mothers and children as well as a guest house in Bangkok, where we'll hopefully be able to visit some street-style/relational ministries.

I've wanted to see Asia for a while now, and I'm not entirely sure why. I have friends that simply love it, and it makes me think I would too. This trip has been a while in the making, maybe a year long process of daydream turned reality. And Thailand has kind of chosen us: we contacted a number of ministries in Southeast Asia and received only one response from those contacts. So to Thailand we will go!

I like to look at this opportunity as a way not only to explore and allow God to show me what He seems to be trying to, but also to encourage those ministries that exist in those hard places.

This is one of those things that is a part of the jigsaw, I think. I don't know what to expect from this trip and haven't formed an agenda for the time as far as what will come out of it. But I'm excited for the opportunity and doing my best to abide in Him and know that whatever the outcome, apart from Him I can't do anything.

if you want me to...

this past weekend my rooms and i went to akron to visit our dear friend, jill. it was a weekend of celebrating fall and friendship and i came home refreshed. on friday afternoon i got a text from jill asking if i was interested in going for a run on saturday, which i was. she then asked how i would feel if it were to be a part of the akron marathon :) apparently her family had planned to run the marathon as a relay team and no one but her brother was prepared. so, we quickly assembled a 5 person relay and did it! it was fun to run a race again, i hadn't since last october, and i'd never run a relay... it's definitely more complicated but provides a fun "communal" aspect to things. and it was a lovely day. so, all in all, good times in akron.

on sunday morning we visited the church jill is a part of and they had a guest speak, tom randall. his message was so encouraging and challenging that i wanted to share it. or listen here. perhaps it was one of those things where what someone is saying is relevant to me but not to you, but i'm not sure... everyone i was sitting with was able to identify their risk afterward. so, listen in and let's get risky. i think you cyclists will enjoy it, he has a cool riding story :)

hearing tom speak made me think of what it would be like to receive letters from paul as a church. how inspiring it is to hear stories of what God is doing in the life of a friend who has chosen to follow Him closely and take risks that perhaps others haven't. i'm reading Life on the Vine by Philip Kenneson in house church and just finished the chapter on joy. he talks about God's people pursuing something different than what the culture says will make you happy. and he talks about re-imagining life according to scripture.
he says,
"I am firmly convinced that one of the greatest obstacles to living the Christian life in contemporary society is an impoverished imagination. Most of us will find it difficult to live a life we cannot imagine. (This, by the way, is the same principle that makes advertising so effective: ads help you imagine what your life would be like with such and such a product.) But how will we imagine a life different from the one we are currently living if we do not immerse ourselves in a different set of narratives that display life and its purposes differently?" p.76

perhaps this all just speaks loudly to what i've been thinking about and working through. perhaps it is something we are always working through.

oh, what is love?

Kim Taylor has a new album. Check it out here... specifically "Lamb."

i am not skilled to understand

"That walk I now remembered. It seemed to me that I had tasted heaven then. If only such a moment could return! But what I never realized was that it had returned-that the remembering of that walk was itself a new experience of just the same kind. True, it was desire, not possession. But then what I had felt on the walk had also been desire, and only possession in so far as that kind of desire is itself desirable, is the fullest possession we can know on earth; or rather, because the very nature of Joy makes nonsense of our common distinction between having and wanting. There, to have is to want and to want is to have. Thus, the very moment when I longed to be so stabbed again, was itself again such a stabbing."
-Surprised by Joy, C.S. Lewis

As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father's commands and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.
John 15:9-11

i am a poster girl with no poster

i had a birthday last week. birthdays are not very much fun as a grown up, i've decided. i did much the same thing on "my day" as any other day: spent some time checking someone into the emergency room, meeting someone on the psych floor and telling someone to stop eating out of the trash and here is a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. i did go to house church, which ended up being a wonderful end to a very normal day. our group has "birthday prayers," where we pray silently for the birthday individual for a while, and then we come back together to share what we prayed, thought, pictured in that time. and those things are written in a card to remember.

one of the most significant prayers/pictures that a friend shared began with this verse:
"Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand; do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
-Phil. 4:4-7
and then she said she pictured me running hard after something... what she wasn't sure.
i hope that that is true of this next year, that i run hard after the Lord and that i rejoice and am reasonable and that i am not anxious but prayerful. doesn't that sound nice? :)

i also had a pre-birthday dinner with my family and a post-birthday dinner with friends. overall, combined with well wishes and prayers for another year of life, my birthday was quite lovely, and i felt so thankful for the relationships i've been given.


i also went to lake cumberland for the weekend. my friend meredith's parents have a condo there. meredith left for heaven in april, and we haven't seen her family since her memorial service. so the weekend was a good chance to love and encourage her parents and husband and to enjoy one another. the weather's been amazing lately, and i was with three of my dearest friends, so it was a delightful time. it was hard to be somewhere and physically feel mere's absence- since she'd lived in south carolina and indiana since we've graduated, i didn't see her frequently. but to be among people who naturally were associated with her, it was a very clear void. we were able to remember a lot, and grieve and share together, and hopefully to heal and grow.

so, on with another year of lessons and growing pains and sorrows and joys. let it be so.

Stronger

so i saw this last night. so cool.


my roomie and i watched the so you think you can dance finale and harry potter. it was a genius night of entertainment :)
i'm looking forward to a weekend with friends. i was pretty exhausted by the end of the day today- sometimes the weeks are so draining, and i got good and yelled at yesterday afternoon by a man i'd never met who blamed me for all of the structural injustices that exist in social services... so, needless to say, i was ready for a weekend.
a friend from high school will be in cinci tomorrow night and we're all going to a reds' game. and then sunday jess and i are headed to columbus to see our beloved jilleybean.
should be a good weekend. and the amazing weather can't hurt! it makes me excited for fall.


"Soon we must all face the choice between what is right and what is easy." -Albus Dumbledore

lightness has a call that's hard to hear

"Life can only be understood backward, but it must be lived forward." -Kierkegaard

"'What if, you know, if we just give in to it, and say this is what it is, then it gets good, and it's the fighting it that makes it so bad.'" p.192
...
"'Maybe we are just supposed to trust that (God) won't beat us up when we get there. Maybe we are supposed to trust that He is good.'" p.193
...
"...when you only ask how and never ask why, you can be happy and ignorant." p.194
-Donald Miller, Through Painted Deserts

"Well darkness has a hunger that's insatiable
And lightness has a call that's hard to hear
I wrap my fear around me like a blanket
I sailed my ship of safety till I sank it"
"Closer to Fine." Indigo Girls

check out The Weepies' song "Simple Life." simply delightful.

i watched bella the other night. i think it is now one of my favorite movies... so beautiful, the colors, the emotions, i loved it. i'd seen almost all of it about a month ago, but i watched the whole thing tonight and it's wonderful.

two weekends ago i attended a training weekend for the organization servants to asia's urban poor. it was refreshing, and the pieces seem to be coming together. it was so nice to realize i do want to live like this! and to be told that that is not exactly a typical reaction.... to know that it really is something i've been called to. plus i made lots of new friends, which is always fun.

i bought a bicycle! i think it is pretty dang cute.

i've been housesitting for a week. it's made me think two things: i never want to live in a suburb again and i never want to have a big house. it's so much effort! i can't wait to get back to my little apartment.

apologies for this being all over the place. it's been a while :)

i'm a new soul

My Courtney MeMe'd me... I love her.

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.

***

1. I fixate on misspellings and misused apostrophes.
2. I wish that life had background music... like in the movies.
3. I used to want to be a fashion buyer, hence the marketing degree.
4. I used to tell my younger sister that commercials fast forwarded if they were on mute.
5. I had the flu in college and during my sickness I wondered if all of my housemates were actually bits of me- like multiple personalities.
6. I am very smell-oriented.
7. I got my nose pierced 2 months after I adamantly said I would never do anything of the sort.

I MeMe Ashlyn, Abby and Emily. I think everyone else has already done it. :)

turn off the car, breathe the air...

hmm....

there is a me you would not recognize

i saw shane claiborne and chris haw speak last week, touring with their book Jesus for President. the psalters were there, too. it was pretty cool.

i also had lunch with a friend last week that was very refreshing. i guess the peace and balance she spoke from were, for me, inspirational. she made me want to take myself and my decisions less seriously, to be faithful in life, and to enjoy it and live it.

over the weekend i watched this documentary:



watch it, it'll make you think. you can borrow mine.

and sunday was father's day. for my dad and me :) i had planned a day with dad that, aside from locking my keys in my car, was a success. we went to a yummy mexican place and then to the taft museum, where one of my recent favorites, kim taylor, was playing for free in the garden. i love her. go see her live and you probably will too.

so, that's my catch up.

"I think we are supposed to stand in deserts and marvel at how the sun rises. I think we are supposed to sleep in meadows and watch stars dart across space and time. I think we are supposed to love our friends and introduce people to the story, to the peaceful, calming why of life. I think life is spirituality....
I mean, life is just life.... ...we aren't going to be any more complete a month from now than we are now."
- Donald Miller, Through Painted Deserts

reasons why

"It might be time for you to go. It might be time to change, to shine out.
I want to repeat one word for you:
Leave.
Roll the word around on your tongue for a bit. It is a beautiful word, isn't it? So strong and forceful, the way you have always wanted to be. And you will not be alone. You have never been alone. Don't worry. Everything will still be here when you get back. It is you who will have changed."
Through Painted Deserts, Donald Miller

i came home early today to screaming trees and a week's worth of mail. i was looking through a magazine and saw an ad that read something like "isn't it funny how 'i can't wait to get there always becomes i can't wait to get home." and it is funny. or something. i have missed my bed this past week, and clean laundry, my apartment and other little things. if i had had those things with me, if i could teleport them back to this past week, i may never have come home.

it's interesting how natural vacation is. it doesn't take any getting used to. and in the midst of it you see it's necessity, and it's underrated status in our world of constantly going. this past week was a week of pure goodness, and i am so glad for it.

i met courtney in boston and we stayed with our friend kendra, except for one night when we stayed with courtney's old friend bashir in nyc. it was so nice to feel so welcome and comfortable with old and new friends who opened their homes to us with nothing but generosity.

we went to the beach and got ice cream, explored cities and ate good food, drank lots of coffee, iced and hot. we ran in both disgustingly hot and beautifully cool weather. we looked in shops, saw movies, and talked a lot. we were good about doing and not; about taking advantage of our freedom by both sleeping in and going and doing. i'd say we did a pretty good job of vacationing.

it was a good week of perspective. it's best to gain that, i think, when outside the situation. you can see what's truly valuable and what you miss, and you can see what things are hard or what has been forced for so long, purely out of routine. it is good to talk through those things with your best friend, especially when their heart seems so much in tune with yours. it is funny to talk about those things through tears on a bus leaving chinatown, surrounded by other languages and weird snoring sounds. it is nice to talk through those things and then listen to music, and to hear songs that speak what you have been saying. it is nice to read what you're thinking printed wittily in a book.

i let go of some things this week and made some refreshing realizations. and some scary, i have no control over that, ones. i saw from a new window what pounds in my heart.

it was a wonderful, glorious week, filled with pursuing joy and celebrating friendship.
thanks, friend. it was so good.
now back to figuring out what's next....

get yourself in this race

decision time is upon me and i have made mine. the other day i was running, perhaps the best day running-wise of the year: cool and sunny, just lovely. and i decided that yes, i will be running another marathon this fall.

allow me to say, excercise is a wonderful form of medicine. it is therapeutic, it keeps you feeling good and in shape... just read this guy's recent article.

i was thinking about how good running has been for me: my mom has even offered to help pay for races because she's seen such positive shifts in my confidence levels and things like that. i was thinking (that's what i do when i run) about how so many people would probably benefit so much from something like it....
so, i highly recommend some kind of activity, if only to maintain some balance in life. i'm not saying go run marathons (my doctor always gives me a bit of trouble), but i am saying, as a person who never thought of herself as athletic or definitely not endurance-y :), that i have seen many, many positive reasons to continue running. just don't discredit yourself. think positively, ask questions, keep trying, do some research, buy some good equipment and do it!

i don't know what i'm doing that for

"No one may claim the name of Christian and be comfortable in the face of hunger, homelessness, insecurity, and injustice found in this country and the world."
-from the Pastoral Letter on Catholic Social Teaching and the U.S. Economy Issued by the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, November 13, 1986

i stole this from a friend's facebook profile.
i've been thinking about it all week.

i had a dream last night that i went with some friends to brazil. i remember feeling elated and saying, "this is my favorite place in the whole world."

consider, even, the lilies

i've been thinking lately a lot about God's goodness and provision.

i had some hard weeks. i didn't like a lot of things and i lacked hope. it seemed that God kept piling things one on top of another. and each thing was heavier: loneliness, frustration, death, hopelessness....

i had a conversation with a friend somewhere in the middle of all of that, and she had had a similar time of loneliness about a year ago. she said that in it, she claimed and gave it to God, saying to Him that she would trust Him, for as long as it would last, and that she would hope in Him to get her through it. and now, the same time this year, she is probably experiencing one of the happiest times in her life.

at the same time the onset of all of this hurt set in was when i was rereading donald miller's searching for God knows what. it was a good reminder and time of reflection on why i felt the way i did and how i was interpreting things. i was feeling sorry for myself because i didn't seem to have the attention and value of others. but miller's book reminded me that the only approval i needed to be seeking was the Lord's, and that yes community was important but that it wasn't going to solve my problems or dictate my worth.

i was thankful for that reminder, and it lifted me somewhat out of the gloom, only to enter into again in a different way with the loss of my friend.

but let me just say, our God is faithful.
even one month after losing meredith and probably four months of fairly consistent sadness, i am already seeing the lessons God is teaching me come to fruition. i feel renewed in my love for others, in my energy to meet needs, in my ability to laugh and think about hard things and speak with honesty and love about them.

God has renewed me. i feel lighthearted, and am begging Him to allow it for a time. I am asking for guidance on finding a balance between giving my time to others and spending time alone with Him. i see with new clarity and certainty my need for God alone, and my desire to grow in that.

i am praying for something upcoming, i hope. God has put on my heart a call so deep that nothing else shakes it- a call to bring justice and hope to his children around the world. he has given me a love for simplicity and beauty in life over one of abundance and complexity, and i long to be able to better practice those desires.

it's interesting, i just read someone's blog and she had posted my most favorite passage from the Chroncles of Narnia, in Voyage of the Dawn Treader. i've been thinking about it a lot lately, and hope you'll enjoy it, too:


"And I thought to myself, oh dear, how ever many skins have I got to take off? For I was longing to bathe my leg. So I scratched away for the third time and got off a third skin, just like the two others, and stepped out of it. But as soon as I looked at myself in the water I knew it had been no good.

Then the Lion said- 'you will have to let me undress you.' I was afraid of his claws, I can tell you, but I was pretty nearly desperate now. So I just lay flat down on my back to let him do it.

The very first tear he made so deep that I thought it had gone right into my heart. And when he began pulling the skin off, it hurt worse than anything I've ever felt. The only thing that made me able to bear it was just the pleasure of feeling the stuff peel off. You know- if you've ever picked the scab off a sore place. It hurts like a billy-oh but it is fun to see it coming away....

Well, he peeled the beastly stuff right off- just as I thought I'd done it myself the other three times, only they hadn't hurt- and there it was, only ever so much thicker, and darker, and more knobbly looking than the others had been. And there I was as smooth and soft as a peeled switch and smaller than I had been. Then he caught hold of me- I didn't like that much for I was very tender underneath now that I'd no skin on- and threw me into the water. It smarted like anything but only for a moment. After that it became perfectly delicious and as soon as I started swimming and splashing I found that all the pain had gone from my arm. And then I saw why. I'd turned into a boy again. You'd think me simply phoney if I told you how I felt about my own arms. I know they've no muscle and are pretty mouldy compared with Caspian's, but I was so glad to see them."

i wanna yearn

where to begin?  sometimes i get overwhelmed by everything and so i slack off in blogging only because i can't put it all to words.  but i want to try.

1. i came home last week one day to mail.  a card, at that.  i love snail mail... maybe partly because all i ever get is bills and stuff from world vision reminding me that the world is falling apart.  and of course because it communicates that someone took time to think about you and do that!  but yeah, a very beautiful card and glorious mix cd greeted me when i arrived home one day.  yay for soulmates.

2. work continues to be good.  i know no one really cares, but i do!  i come home each day so thankful.  i took a girl to an appointment today and it was so fun that we were trying to figure out what other things she "needs" to go to, so we can hang out more. :)

3. prince caspian.  i saw the new narnia film on saturday with my seesters and it was really fun.  i think they did a better job than the first one (but i haven't read them in a while....)  the depiction of lucy's needing aslan and looking for him although he seemed to have abandoned narnia was wonderful.  clive staples is a genius.

4. i went to a symposium on violence in the community last wednesday night.  it was really cool, hearing about people in important positions care about people that no one seems to be concerned for- the dope boys, the gang members, the kids of the inner city.  it got me so pumped up.  my only lament with things like that is i want to strategize following the discussion, like everyone say what they're gonna do besides talk about the problem, and let's go do it!  oh i am such a dreamer.  but it was refreshing nonetheless.

5. church was great yesterday, very practical.  the head pastor is reading a book about what non-Christians think of Christians.  it's so sad, but i understand it.  the church seems to be a sleeping giant.  i have been energized lately because a guy from the church works at the homeless shelter around the corner from me; it's like having a partner in what we're trying to do.  but yeah, the service talked about this video

and about matthew 28 where the disciples are doubting and Jesus commissions them anyway.  he just talked about how we can be different, more like Jesus and less like what the world thinks of as Christians.  he was much more eloquent.  i've been working all day. :)

so many other things, but i feel boring.

i'll write when i feel more poetic.

i wish it would stop raining.

know that i'm still learning

the swell season was last night. it was... wonderful. i am having trouble putting words to it. seeing the two of them was surreal and very real at the same time. it's like they're just so much them, that seeing them so closely was no different than seeing them on a movie screen; but at the same time it was thrilling. and their music... i guess you could say it connects to your soul. glen is so precious and honest with his stories, sharing from clear, real-life feelings and experiences, and marketa, in her youth, exudes a confidence as well as earthiness that is refreshing. the show was altogether delightful. i didn't get any photos; it's like john mayer said, "didn't have a camera by my side this time, hoping i would see the world through both my eyes." :) plus we were pretty far away, no photo would have done it justice.

i took today off of work since i knew we'd be getting home late; the show was almost 2 hours away. so i am relaxing and having coffee and debating how to spend these precious hours of freedom. i've already caught up on the latest episode of the office and done some journaling.... i'm sure a run will ensue and who knows what else.

random trivia:
i don't know if you've heard the news about hard plastice watter bottles, but apparently they're phasing out current ones due to associated health risks. now, i know people say there are health risks with everything, but i've been hearing things since college. so i gave up my orange plastic bottle for a new aluminum one, which i think is pretty cute, and hopefully does not have the same health concerns associated... plus, some environmental friendliness?

anyway...
it's been well with my soul lately. i feel a sense of clarity and perhaps even direction i haven't felt in a long while. the things i care about have been reconfirmed and illuminated, and i feel as though God is really trying to show me what is deep within, what matters most. this i am thankful for.

pick me up love

this was a fun weekend.
i've had several good days lately, and i've been thankful for them. work has been enjoyable, and not felt much like work. i've felt joyful, peaceful, and even... gasp! a bit happy. it's bad when you feel guilt over happiness. i'm always learning that balance.

i saw lots of good music friday night with good people.
saturday i had sisterly fun running errands and watching penelope.
and today has been sabbathy and mothery :) good thoughts and fellowship with church this morning, and then i had lunch with my family and did some "practicing" of the guitar, as i am trying to learn.

here's a little inspiration for the week ahead...
love.

sugar high

tomorrow is a long time

today i noticed shortly after arriving at work that everything was pissing me off.  so i texted my roommate to see how she was doing today.  and she informed me that she too was not having the greatest day.  and she reminded me that two weeks ago today our dear friend meredith went on from this messy world.  

losing my friend has been a weird, hard, lonely, and all kinds of other things time.  

the morning i found out i had about 15 minutes of numbness, where i knew, even before reading the update, what had happened and was relieved for her, that she was no longer suffering.  

and then the reality of the situation set in.  i said what had happened to a coworker.  and a beautiful thing happened: my coworker cried with me.  and i was able to say things like i know mere is better off and that i'm not sad for her, i'm sad for the rest of us.

and in the past two weeks we have remembered mere, both through a service and through interactions with friends and family- no one was a stranger to her.  i have been blessed to see glimpses of the kingdom of heaven come here; through phone calls and visits and letters and offers of dinner and the support of friends.  

i got angry for a bit, or not angry, but really frustrated.  i longed so much for meredith to be healed, for redemption to come here on earth and not in heaven.  and then when it didn't happen that way i started to question how much redemption can come on earth.

last wednesday i watched a young yuppie married man pick up a prostitute in his new shiny red pickup truck in the middle of the day.  i felt the strangeness of walking through a drug infested neighborhood, and felt the absence of the church.  i spoke with individuals that i helped to get apartments last spring, only to be back in the shelter, run out by dope boys.  

and my question in all of that was, how much hope is there, really, here on earth.

and those questions lead into other questions about my own life, my prayers, my hopes and dreams.  i do not compartmentalize; when one thing comes loose everything else shifts.  

and then sunday someone spoke about the redemptive timeline.  he said we are in a time of already, but not yet.  the kingdom of heaven is come, but we are not yet finished with all of the messiness of the world.  

i've found myself envying meredith, and wanting so much to not have to hurt anymore, and not having to see the hurt all around me.  

but on sunday he also shared this verse, that has been coming up a lot lately.  

"Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you.  But rejoice insofar as you share Christ's sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed." 1 Peter 4:12-13

i find myself with some renewed hope.  it comes and goes.  our suffering is to be expected.  but so is the glory that will be revealed.  i am still having a hard time finding words for my prayers. i think i don't know what to say, still.  and i know i am thinking differently, or more fervently, about a lot of other things.  

"The Lord is good to those who wait for him

to the soul who seeks him

It is good that one should wait quietly

for the salvation of the Lord.

it is good for a man that he bear

the yoke in his youth.

Let him sit alone in silence

when it is laid on him;

let him put his mouth in the dust-

there may yet be hope;"

Lamentations 3:25-29