uggggh

i don't wanna go i don't wanna go i don't wanna goooooo

leaving sucks.

i love this place.

The wind is raging outside, pushing up against the house, knocking and begging to be let in. It's forcing its way through the wind chimes, and the trees outside are rocking back and forth, back and forth, back and forth.

I'm sleeping on the couch. One of those sleeps where I'm semi-aware of what is going on, but still, lost in my dream.

I wake up. Eyes half-open, I stumble down the stairs.

Gram, sitting at her desk, opens wide her arms.
I sit on her lap.
She holds me in her arms, like I'm a little kid again. It's nice.
She says, "I love you so much."

I love this place.

Now the music is playing upstairs.
Tango, twenty-four/seven.
I can hear heels tap-tapping on the floor, and Gerald saying "uno mas, uno mas."

I tangoed, too.
A nice man asked me to dance and led me around and around the floor.
Then Gerald asked me to dance. He loves to share his passions.
Tango embrace. I closed my eyes and followed, leaning into the arms of my partner, finding the rhythm of the music and somehow doing steps I've never learned, back-stepping and front-stepping, turning my body to the right, and back again.
I can tango? In hiiigggghhhh heels? Apparently.

I love this place.

p.s. Heated toilet seats are such a cold-morning treat.

it's spring break

i'm a traveler at heart

san diego-catalina-hawaii-san diego

now: hawaii
home away from home
rain all day
paia with gram
sleep in a loft
tonight, i'll dance tango

today, life tugs in the direction of good

mark 1

...the most intensely beautiful study of scripture that I've ever done. Hours and hours and hours each day spent in a tiny, freezing cold, dimly lit tent, studying scripture, manuscripting and scribbling notes, debating meaning.

Wonderful. Beautiful. Perfect.
No other form of study seems to do scripture, or Jesus, or life, justice.

Day 1, after three hours=frustration.

I completely missed the point.
The Jews were anxiously hoping for and longing for the Messiah in the deepest part of them. They longed for the Old Testament promise to be fulfilled. They longed for Jesus in a way that I haven't known in a long time.

And I missed it.
I wanted to get to the part about Jesus and what He said and what He did. I wanted to talk about the wilderness and His temptation and His baptism. I totally missed the point that John the Baptist was preparing the way for the longing for the Messiah to be fulfilled and he was pointing with his entire life and being to Jesus.

I wouldn't have been able to tell you what it meant to truly long for Jesus in the depths of my soul.

But He is the Messiah, the One who we've been waiting for. And now, my soul remembers what that aching, longing desperation for Jesus feels like.

He has authority, echoing Divine authority.
He has the authority to touch a leper and restore to him his life.
(TOUCH: when something touches something holy, it becomes holy itself)
He has the authority to forgive.
(FORGIVE: set free from bondage, process of washing/cleansing, requires atonement)
He has authority to teach and to cast out demons.
He has authority over the physical and the spiritual realms, over our Spirits.

SPIRIT: our life and vitality
it can be moved in a particular direction, impaired or diminished, then revived again
ruah: as if a supernatural force is taking possession of our Spirit.
manifestations of divine energy
the dimension of our personality where relationship with God is possible
the human life in man--appetites, emotions, passions

What I want for, what I ache for, is that Jesus would have possession of my Spirit, that my Spirit would be under the authority of Christ.

When He came, the Heavens were torn open.
Jesus allowed the Kingdom of God to break open.

OPEN:
can be metaphoric, spiritual, literal or physical
in the Old Testament, heaven opens to send judgment, blessing, salvation

And Jesus is God. And He offers evidence, over and over and over again.
And "Son of God" means something completely different than what I thought it to mean.
And "Son of man" means something completely different than what I thought it to mean.
And "authority" means something completely different than what I thought it to mean.
The strongman has been bound and his house plundered.

And Jesus has not changed.
Wedding guests do not fast while the bridegroom is with them. So we eat.
And I want a new surname, like when Jesus gave Simon the surname "Peter," or when He gave James and John the surname "Boanegers."
(SURNAME: new identity, captures the essence of a person)
I want Jesus to tell me who I am.

And, to Jesus, can I just say "whoa?"
Because really, whoa.
Moment after beautiful moment, whoa.
Whoa, whoa, whoa.

Authority over the human body and disease, over Spirits, over evil, and even over nature.
All things are under His control.
"Who then is this, that even wind and sea obey Him?"
Whoa.
Finally, His disciples see who He is--fullness of Divinity, breadth of power.
And maybe the tension just completely disappears and the gravity of who Jesus is becomes clear and what else do we need to know?

What else matters?

food for thought

I don't like restaurants.

I love eating, but I don't like restaurants. Partly because they're expensive and I'm slowly running out of money; partly because they make me strangely anxious. I would much rather be in the comfort of my own home, where we can eat, then sit and chat for however long we feel like it. That applies to fast food as well. And birthday celebrations.

I used to think that I liked going out to dinner, especially if I got to get dressed up. I don't. I love eating at home, wearing jeans and some comfortable worn-in top that doesn't cling to every curve or need to be pulled up repeatedly. Plus, I always spill, and I feel much less guilty about spilling on jeans than on my silk dress that I bought in France.

Restaurants stress me out. So many people running around, plus you feel a lot of pressure to make the dinner event as a whole great, because you're paying for the food and the ambiance and you're spending time with this other person, so you better make it good. But I promise a much better conversation if we eat at home. I feel more secure at home, which means I feel more secure with whoever I'm eating with, which means that conversation is bound to be good. Plus, we can pick the soundtrack. And, doing the dishes is oddly relaxing for me.


Is that okay? I'm much more of a home-body than I ever recognized. So come over. We'll cook, eat, and we can hang out while the water runs and the mess slowly disappears. It'll be great. I promise.

toussaint academy

Today was my community service day. I wasn't going to go because technically it's Spring Break and I was feeling like I just wanted to be alone to think and process through some pretty big things on my plate. I think, though, that maybe God wanted me there. I wasn't planning on going but I did have the brilliant idea to walk up to campus and check my mail, maybe go to Founders, maybe spend some time in prayer. That was the plan. No community service, not today.

But, as I was walking up the final stretch of the hill, the van that drives our group each week just happened to pull out in front of me. Rolling down the window, they yelled "Are you coming??" Shoot. Umm..."Ya!" And I got in the car because I couldn't, in good conscience, say no. The students at Toussaint are much more important than my mail, which would be waiting for me when we got back.

Thank goodness I went. They expected us. There were only three of us today, as opposed to the regular 10, and I'm so glad that I was one of them. We're building relationships and it's frustrating and hard and I'm so glad that I was able to be there today to spend as much time with them as possible, to help them begin to see us as trustworthy and stable and dependable. They need a little bit more of that in their lives.

Toussaint is a school for homeless kids in downtown San Diego. Some of them have been homeless for years, some for weeks; all have been through something incredibly traumatic, something that you can only understand if you've been there yourself. We go each week to do a mural project with them, to build solid relationships with them, to encourage them, as college students, to keep dreaming and keep working towards their futures.

We've been going for a few weeks now, and it has been so much harder than I expected. I'm still in the process of figuring out the role that we're supposed to play in their lives. Are we their friends? Are we their mentors? Do they value us at all, or are we just another thing that they have to do as part of their program? Do they want to talk to us about all of the things going on in their lives, all of the things that they've been through, their daily heartbreak? Do they know that we care? There's no black and white answer.

There's no black and white answer, no manual for what we're doing, and it's frustrating. I'm frustrated. I'm frustrated for them--that what they've experienced is so unfair, that they don't know what we're talking about when we say things like "community" and "home" and "family." It breaks my heart that when I talk about my parents being supportive and loving and nurturing, they don't get it. I feel guilty. And I'm frustrated with them--that some of them seem so anti what we're doing, so disengaged. I'm frustrated with myself that I'm frustrated with them--that I have this idea that they should value their time with us because we come once a week just to do this really cool art project with them. Then I realize, of course, that they have every right to be frustrated too. They have every right to distrust us, to wonder about our intentions, to judge our dependence and whether or not we'll follow through. They have every right to be frustrated about the injustice that they face every single day.

But we're trying to build relationships; we're trying to tell them that we do care--about their pasts, and their present, and their future. We're trying to tell them that what they've experienced is not right and it's not fair and they didn't deserve it. It's hard. I want to sit down with each of them, or maybe give them a punching bag, and just tell them that it's okay to cry, it's okay to be pissed off, that I don't know who wouldn't be. It's okay, it's okay, it's okay. I want to make sure that they know that they are valued, that they have so much potential, that they are talented and creative and funny and smart. I want to tell them that I have no explanation for them, I have no idea what to say or how to help them cope or grieve their losses; I want to tell them that I admire their strength.

But right now, it feels forced and awkward and there is obvious tension between the role we're currently in and the one that we want to be in. So next week, we'll paint and listen to music and eat together, and hopefully, that will be the beginning of a beautiful community, one that they understand and can come to love. We'll see.

shades of grey

I'm a black-and-white kind of girl. All or nothing. Perfect, or a waste of time. My eyes pass over the middle ground in search of the "perfect" way.

But life is rarely perfect, and life rarely falls into black-and-white containers. Thank God.

Life can't just be black and white, cut and dry, yes or no. If only it were that simple. But life is push and pull, tension and release, charcoal and slate and heather and silver and taupe. Life is so undefined, decisions are so relative, we fall in-between. It's frustratingly beautiful.

My life is constantly lived in all shades of grey, because there is tension between the black and white. I feel myself pulled in every direction, with no answers and little clarity. So I'm just going to write. I'm going to let my writing fall in the grey. I'm going to begin an attempt to navigate the grey. From now on, you won't get just little bits and pieces of my black-and-white attempt at perfection. The grey means you get it all.

So here's my life, bouncing around like a rubber ball, falling into the perfect shade of grey.


p.s. I didn't just go emo...I still love colors...
p.p.s. I prefer the European spelling of grey. It makes me feel intelligent and cultured.

one of those nights...

It's one of those nights that evolved itself into something beautiful.

It was supposed to be a homework night. A sit in my room and type essay question after essay question about theology and marriage and books that I haven't quite gotten around to night. But these friends of mine came knockin' and now, here we sit on the big comfy couches in the lounge, listening to Bon Iver, debating pronunciation and talking about imaginary friends.

"I had two imaginary friends when I was growing up. They were called Bob and Dolphin."
Laughter. Intrigued, we asked questions.
"No, they were both humans. And they played games with me."
Laughter.

And then the stories came, with intermittent fits of laughter, echoing through the high-ceilinged room.

"My imaginary cat friend's name was Mr. Pickens."
Obviously, more questions.
"I don't know, we played by the window a lot."

Story after story after story.
And just like the evening, conversation evolved. I love that about these nights.
Lent. Sea-kittens (or for normal humans: fish, aptly renamed by PETA). Aristotle and anthropocentrism.

"No, but they weren't like my real friends, like my intimate friends."
"Oh, like Bob and Dolphin?"
"NO! I'm talking about my real friends, my stuffed animal friends."
"I clearly remember the day Bear lost an eye."

How do people even exist? We are SO weird.