this rocks

i have never been so genuinely and whole-heartedly happy :)

ptl ptl ptl

butterflies

well, i'm not usually the girl who gets all sentimental in the arrivals terminal
buuuuuttttt, tonight was an exception

i got butterflies in my stomach watching an older couple reunite
and hover in the space between the driver's open door and the driver's seat itself
and they hugged
then looked at each other
then kissed
hugged, looked, kissed
hugged, hugged, hugged

and it was wonderful :)

--------

also, i'm seeing spiritual parallels in everything. more to come.

update

listening to:
beck--girl
chairlift--bruises
charlie hall--mystery
coldplay--till kingdom come
damian marley--all night
eisley--marsh king's daughter
mewithoutyou--a stick, a carrot & string
owl city--fireflies

reading:
1 corinthians

learning:
holy awe
tbat the Lord loves justice

still counting down until:
wedding (friday)
move back to san diego (sunday)
birthday (tuesday)

enjoying:
sleep
camping
fresh flowers in my bedroom

happy that:
i can set up a tent

i have a dream

that one day, i will live in the urban-country
with rolling hills
and mountains in the near distance

i'll live in a cozy little house
with a loft
and a bookshelf
and a view of some body of water
(lake, river, ocean, pond...it's not that important)

i'll go on bike rides
and read books on a blanket under the clouds
and have people over for dinner
friends, family, neighbors, people who want/need food and/or company

we'll form our own little community
and share our possessions
and encourage/challenge/support one another

then we'll leave our little country home
we'll ride our bikes into the real world
and say and say again,
"Your Kingdom come, Your will be done,
on earth as it is in Heaven."

predictions come true

i went back and reread what i wrote on new year's eve
i remember laying on my bedroom floor, writing that little diddy
writing with my characteristic vagueness about
changing relationships
changing locations
change...
i stated a lot of facts
i made a lot of predictions
i had a lot of hope

that was seven months ago
(wow. time goes too fast...)
and i don't want to toot my own horn
because really, i can't take much of the credit...
but i was right.

wedding: next week
old school that feels new: best decision of my life
significant birthdays: dad turns 50, gram turns 75, gerald turns 80, i turn 21
summer adventure: jamaica=life change
finally decide my major: sociology major with history/theology minor
meet my husband: eh, who knows
(simultaneously throw up because it's scary): there have been a lot of "it's scary/i feel nauseous" moments, and i wouldn't have it any other way
fall crazily in love: it looked 8,000% different than i expected it to, but yes, i fell in Love
God surprises me with Himself: constant
community: check
growth: triple check
laughter: a billion checks
wonder: yes, yes, yes
social justice: my heart has been torn up
dinner parties: yes, complete with homemade vegetarian dishes :)
provision and restoration and intimacy with Jesus: i'll say yes, yes, yes with an eternal gratefulness
"special occasion perfume:" wore it today, while running errands
creativity and energy, beauty and inspiration: yes and yes, yes and yes
experiences and circumstances that push me even farther into God: it goes without saying, yes.

i wish that i could just open up my journal for you to read about all of these things that came true
all of these things that God brought into existence in my life
not without difficulty and some measure of pain
but these things are here, nonetheless
things that changed
and will continue to change
but i'm far too private for that, so you'll just have to trust me

it's july 22, 2009, and the Lord has been faithful :)

tonight

or, i guess, last night...

...we played freeze tag and had a sing-a-long in the park...
...then we almost got arrested...
...then i had a panic attack...
...then we snuggled on the couch and watched videos on youtube...

it was a wonderful evening, if i do say so myself :)

seriously...

just listen to feist...

this must be the soundtrack for falling in love...

currently buzzing around inside of my brain

listening to:
andrew bird--fiery crash

architecture in helsinki--do the whirlwind
belle and sebastian--step into my office, baby
brooke waggoner--my legionnaire
feist--gatekeeper

feist--inside + out

feist--tout doucement

she & him--why do you let me stay here?

reading:
dave eggers--a heartbreaking work of staggering genius

learning:
what it is to be loved/affirmed/enjoyed
that the Lord loves justice

counting down until:
my best friend's wedding (july 31)
i move back to san diego (august 2)
my 21st birthday (august 4)
(...the fullest five days in the history of man...)

enjoying:
bike rides
vegetarian recipes
being read to
puzzles

happy that i've:
almost completely paid my dad back
been blessed with amazing friends
been smiling a lot these days :)

it's beginning to come together

(it's long, i know...)

There are experiences in life that rip you wide open, making you hypersensitive to colors and tastes and sounds, allowing you to see beauty and suffering coexisting in a way that you’ve not yet seen. Jamaica was that experience. Jamaica was the place where I noticed every flavor, every song, every flower; Jamaica was the place where I cried over the collision of injustice and beautiful expression, where I have never seen so clearly the effects of both slavery and freedom; Jamaica was the place that ruined me to anything but Jamaica.

It made me want to shout at the top of my lungs, from the highest mountaintop, two very different messages:

Hello, world. There is something horribly wrong with you. Then,
Hello, world. You are so wonderful.

I was at a loss for words my first day back in America (a home that suddenly seemed to be lacking, neutral, bland…)—one word answers, sentences marked by vagueness, protective of the depths of my experience. Conversations were brief and, even with those closest to me, slightly awkward.

How was Jamaica? It was…intense…(the only word that came to mind that could do my three week stay in Jamaica any form of justice)…Oh, well…you look tan…Thanks (end scene.)

There was a song that I found before leaving for Jamaica that gave me the slightest hint at what my experience would look like. I listened to it on repeat, added it to iPod playlists, fell asleep with its rhythm and lyrics flooding into my ears:

Say the world is spinning around
Everything is upside down
They show no love for the people
Say the world is spinning around
Everything is upside down
Oh, I can hear the trumpet sound

This was the story that Jamaica began to tell me—one story with an abundance of plot lines; a story that, unless you’ve seen Jamaica, felt Jamaica, touched Jamaica, makes no sense. A story whose characters fought for my attention, fought to be told. It is a story of Jamaica then and Jamaica now, a story of desperation and of hope—inseparable, as each part has been so entangled in each other.

Jamaica then: slavery, oppression, exploitation, perverted religion, greed; beauty
Jamaica now: tourism, cultural exploitation, the continuation of a master-servant relationship; still, beauty, freedom
Desperation: poverty, violence, struggle
Hope: community, children, laughter, church, music, art, rhythm, culture

I can only assume that the intensity of their freedom and hope flows directly from the intensity of their enslavement and desperation.

We learned about the slave trade in elementary school, I’m sure, glossing over facts, minimizing the horrors so that our young brains would not be damaged by such harsh truth. We spent very little time learning about the ships and the diseases, about the punishment; we moved quickly into the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln, emancipation, freedom. Oh, to be an American fighting for the cause of justice…

Any notion of past/present/future responsibility, global connectedness, collaboration was effectively silenced. The slave trade that formed Jamaica confronted me, though, in a different way, telling me a different story. Perhaps it was the detail of the readings or the tours of the Great Houses; perhaps it was seeing the imprint of hundreds of years of slavery so clearly stamped on today’s Jamaica. Perhaps I was a naïve little girl suddenly awakened to the reality of an unjust society, an unjust world, a brokenness in our humanity.

I struggled with the idea of collaboration. I imagined myself a young girl in England, circa 1720, eating my favorite: a chocolate cake. I imagined indulging in each sweet bite, licking the frosting off of my fingers, then running off carefree to join my family in church, completely unaware that I had just collaborated with the greatest system of injustice in human history. I had eaten chocolate cake, made from sugar cultivated by slave labor, in a country where my “people” (that is, white folk) did not belong, using my religion and our “progressive weapons” as their oppressive tools. In feeding myself, I had fed the machine. I had essentially affirmed colonial action in the West Indies, the dehumanization of an entire people group, racism and bondage. What did that make me? What did that make my nation, the motherland? How could I identify with people who valued money and power over human life? I couldn’t, I wouldn’t, I don’t. Oh, but how easy to fall into the trap of chocolate cake, the enslavement of a continent.

Of course I, Kara Lee Kimball, born in California in 1988, can not be held responsible for British colonization and slavery; but collaboration does not end on August 1, Emancipation Day. Americans were once Europeans, and Europeans were once (twice, infinity times) dominators. Jamaicans are still living inside of the web of conquest and oppression that was spun before them; I am still reaping the benefits. Had we gotten here by collaboration?

Had I, by traveling to Jamaica, collaborated in the Tourism Board’s scheme to increase travel and lessen cultural authenticity?
Had I, by staying at Silver Sands, by enjoying the presence (and the food) of my house moms at Valhalla, collaborated in the continuation of a master-servant relationship, so prevalent on the island of Jamaica?
Had I, by purchasing a pair of underpriced jeans three months ago, collaborated in a trading “free zone,” where Jamaican women are exploited for cheap labor in order to survive?
Is collaboration the default human response?

It has never been clearer that history is not stagnant—the way that greed is still dictating international policy, economic policy, human interaction. It is now so clear that even the most evil of schemes are not out of reach for those “civilized” persons who seek personal gain and survival. Yes, Richie Spice was correct when he said that the world is spinning around, upside down. The Great Houses had on display “man traps” for catching and mutilating runaway slaves; Spice sings of nuclear weapons destroying the population. We are not so far from the days of slavery.

All of these things—the value of human life (or lack thereof), religion, culture—propagated by White men, backed by Western power—are upside down. In slave ships, humans were positioned in a way that they were not able to stand, fully erect, as humans. To force slaves into submission and obedience, masters used a cat-o’-nine tails—a horrendous torture tool. Of course, when I think of the cat-o’-nine tails, I immediately think back to the narrative of the brutal crucifixion of Jesus Christ in the Gospels, during which the cat-o’-nine tails was employed. What an ironic parallel, I thought, that “Christian” masters were acting as the Romans, beating their slaves as they had beaten their Messiah. Now, the name of Jesus was being perverted for the sake of capitalism, monetary gain, pleasures that would not and could not last.

I felt sick, thinking of how many had allowed this to happen, turning their backs and closing their mouths, protecting their own interests. I wondered, how was it ethically sound to take a journey that kept slaves in such awful conditions that nearly one half died before reaching their destination? How was such loss of life justified? (Not to mention, how was this practice economically beneficial for slave traders, though I could really care less about their financial prosperity.) I wondered so many things about the so obvious presence of evil. Justifications were offered, decisions were explained, and yet, I could not wrap my mind around it.

Hence, my silent return to America. I was too angry to speak, too nervous that others wouldn’t understand, too busy sorting through the constant battle of good vs. evil. I felt responsible, if not for the slave trade itself, then for future generations. As a human being. Because I’m alive. Because I recognize how easy it is to slip into patterns of injustice. I came to a conclusion: collaboration, even unconscious collaboration with evil must come to an end in order for humanity to survive. We cannot survive another slave trade, another genocide, more racism and greed, else the foundation of humanity, of community, will crumble beneath us.

Of course, Jamaica is not all slavery and oppression and poverty—not by a long shot. Jamaica is defined by resistance to the West that sought to confine it—music used to express their sorrows and concerns; dance, because they’ve got rhythm; colors so vibrant, standing in direct opposition to the neutral colors filling my suburban America; food so full of flavor, people so full of life, churches full of praise. “Full,” it seems, is an apt description of what Jamaica is. This “fullness” tells the story of their emancipation; I hope that by experiencing, engaging, learning the culture, we have participated in the only acceptable form of collaboration—that is, collaborating with freedom.

Music was a form of resistance. In buying a Bob Marley CD or T-shirt, we collaborated in spreading his (and Jamaicans as a whole) concerns for social justice and change throughout the world.

Religion, disguised as oppressive, was in fact, a form of resistance—affirming a heavenly reality far better than the earthly reality that slaves were accustomed to. In attending a church service, we collaborated in a genuine faith experience, one not used to oppress, not used as an opiate for the masses. Instead, the Jamaican faith has been birthed out of a truly biblical resistance to oppression and a Jesus who is not poised for a portrait, sitting meek and mild, covered in white skin.

In creating real relationships with authentic Jamaicans, we collaborated in the defiance of the “tourist” stereotype and the master-servant relationship.

In painting a mural with the special education students at the Duncans All-Age School, we collaborated in creative expression, in laughter and childish innocence; we collaborated in life and in love.

Richie Spice sings, as his last line, “Oh, I can hear the trumpets sound.” Trumpets. As if ushering in redemption, canceling out the need for retribution. How I would love to be in Jamaica, with Valerie and Deneisa, their kids and grandkids, on August 1, celebrating the story of their freedom and the redemption that has come and will come. Soon come. There is a bond between us, a responsibility among us, not just because of my short stay in Jamaica, but because of our humanity, our hope for the future. Because I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again: Jamaica ruined me in the best possible way, and now, my world is changing.

...

i want a wedding.

yes, yes, i dooooo.

all around the world :)

Jamaica: a recap

i wrote about everything. i wrote about the class i took, the church i attended, the kids i played with, the daily thunderstorms, our nightly meals...everything.

day one: "I don't know how you go back to America after this and settle back into USD and an American lifestyle of spending and wasting and shutting yourself off from what is truly good and important in life."

day two: "I am being ruined in the best possible way."

"I feel like the world has so much to offer us than what we accept from our culture. We settle for cheap and shallow experiences when we can have deep, rich experiences everywhere we go."

day three: "It's frustrating how we emphasize entertainment and economic prosperity and so many other things over human life...we don't value each other...there have always been issues of exploitation and injustice...our bombs are more sophisticated, but we're still using bombs. Where is the progress?"

day four: "We are so far from the life that the Lord originally intended for us, so I'm stuck between loving being alive and experiencing life here and grieving over the state of our world, longing for the promise of what is to come, what will be fulfilled, and soon!"

day five: "I want to do things that matter. I want to experience life."

day six: "...I'm still working it all out in my head."

day seven: "The Spirit moves as it wills, and that is enough for me."

day eight: "I'm not wasting my breath or my energy. Ever expenditure over the last week and into the next two matters. Every trip to Duncans has engaged me, taught me, expanded me and my ideas and perceptions in a way that is life-giving. This whole process has been so beautifully orchestrated."

day nine: "That bugs me. I see it in myself, too, and that bugs me even more."

day ten: "I'm so human."

day twelve: "I'm not quite sure how I'm feeling about going home yet...not ready to hit the reality of being an American...not sure if I'm ready to resituate myself into living at home again."

day thirteen: "It makes me sad to think that some people use other substances so often that it masks who they really are...like they're no longer real and aren't truly experiencing life because every experience is covered by something else...they eventually become slaves to that substance and lose the freedom to exist well without it."

day fourteen: "It constantly amazes me how unique each person is...how our personalities can blend or clash and how humans are seriously just so weird...how humans usually have some really awesome characteristic that differentiates us but somehow brings us together at the same time. It's cool to be a part of that kind of melding."

day fifteen: "I'm so glad that I am somehow here, at this school, in this country, doing what I'm doing...I feel so so blessed...and also, 10,000% tired, which, I think, is the best way to be."

day sixteen: "I don't understand why the Lord would let the name of Christ, the Messiah, the name of justice and of life, be manipulated in such a horrendous way...I don't understand why humans seem to have so much power even though we misuse it over and over again."

"This is just part of me longing for a heavenly reality that is soon coming, but isn't quite here yet...sometimes that inspires hope and excitement in me; sometimes it depresses me."

"I can do my part."

"I can't describe how good this kind of exhaustion feels--knowing that I've given myself completely...I can feel it in my arms and my legs, the fact that I'm constantly hungry. Every last bit of energy is being used up."

day seventeen: "I am going to significantly simplify my life when I get home."

"I'm in a completely different place than I was a few months ago...I'm a different person...sometimes I barely recognize myself..."

day eighteen: "Tomorrow is going to be a hard day. How do you say goodbye? I'm already so sad."

day twenty: "I'm on the plane right now. This is so so strange. Tonight will be hard."

"This is not Jamaica...everything is different and I'm not really a fan...I'm afraid that people are going to think that Jamaica was just beaches and sunshine and that they won't understand the depth of my experience...how intense it was, why it's so hard to be back."

Jamaica challenged me on every single level imaginable...so let me try to explain...