The Road Less Traveled

Beyond Doubt

2012-02-12T16:23:00.003-06:00

Double Posting:

Part of the sermon at church this morning dealt with Thomas. Of the disciples, I have always felt a pretty deep connection with Thomas. When his responses are noted in Scripture, I find that I am on the same page as him, and I have always felt angered when people write him off as “the Doubting Apostle,” because his doubts resonate with the questions in my soul, and I want to believe that Jesus did not write him off as less blessed because of his doubts. So I spent some time in Thomas’ story today and I wrote this.

Thomas is listed with all the other disciples as being called in Matthew, Mark, and Luke; but he really comes into his own narrative in the gospel of John.

There is John 11 where Jesus tells the disciples that Lazarus is dead and he intends to go and bring him back to life, regardless of the threats on his life in the area of Bethany. Thomas responds by urging the others, “Let us also go, that we may die with him.” Thomas is aware of the severity of this situation, and he exhorts the disciples to risk threats of stoning so they can be with Jesus. Thomas is fiercely loyal, and he is brave.

In John 14, the disciples are eating the Last Supper with Jesus, who is sharing his parting words with them after washing their feet. As Jesus says he is leaving to prepare a place for them all, Thomas breaks the silence with the question and hurt nagging at his soul: “Where are you going and how can we know the way?” It seems that Thomas feels abandoned in the middle of Jesus’ plan. And Jesus responds, “[Thomas] I am the way, the truth and the life . . .” I am the answer; I am the path; trust me. Thomas voices his fears with Jesus, his fears that he is being strung out on the line and his fears of being left alone, and Jesus answers, “I have you, I and I alone.”

Then in John 20, Jesus comes back from the dead to reveal himself to all of the disciples, except Thomas– Thomas whose life and allegiance have clearly been given to Jesus; Thomas who has risked showing Jesus just how scared he is that Jesus is leaving him behind. Yes, he alone does not see his savior, and I can well imagine his anguish and where evil came for him in his fears.

In the aftermath of Jesus revealing himself to the others and in response to the excitement of all of his friends, Thomas says, “Unless I see in his hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, andthrust my hand into his side, I will not believe.” The word for “put” and “thrust” is the same: βάλλω. It means to throw or crash down upon, to strike, to hurl; in battles it is translated “attack.” There is much energy and passion present for Thomas as he talks about what he would like to do with Jesus. I think part of Thomas just wants to punch Him: the depth of Thomas’ love for Jesus is so overwhelming that he can hardly bear his hurt and feelings of betrayal here. Surely Thomas does not believe that all of his friends are lying to him or playing a joke, not about this. He must have know they had seen Jesus, making his sense of doubt and fear all the worse: Why didn’t Jesus come for me?

Enter Jesus. After 8 days of Thomas wondering, Jesus comes specifically for his fiercely loyal, brave, fearful, angry, hurting friend and says, “Peace.” Let the war in your soul cease; I have come for you Thomas; I will always come for you.

Then Jesus says, “Reach.” Come feel where I bore nails for you; you can touch me, I am right here. Jesus continues by mirroring Thomas’ language, “Thrust your hand in my side.” Punch me if you need to; I can hold your anger. And “be not faithless, but believing.” These words are particularly sweet: they are Jesus’ calling for Thomas. Jesus commands Thomas to leave the smallness of his doubts and believe. γίνομαι– to become– is used in this verse instead of εἰμί– to be– and the fullness of its meaning can be translated: “to arise, to be made, to come into existence, to enter the stage.” It is as if Jesus says, “Thomas, I am answering the deepest question of your soul; you no longer need to wonder if I will ever abandon you. Know that I love you deeply, know that I see and hold all of who you are, know that I will always come for you and be with you, and now step into the story for which I have created you.” And Thomas says, “Yes.”

The last time he is directly referenced in Scripture, Thomas is “of one accord” with the other disciples as they select the man who will fill Judas’ spot and continue the ministry of the 12 (Acts 1). However, it is believed that of the 12, Thomas took the gospel the furthest. He is the one rumored to have taken it to India.

I sometimes wonder how I am supposed to follow Jesus when I don’t know where I am going or where he is going and when I feel alone. I sometimes want to punch Him. I have asked, “Why didn’t you come for me?”

And I see Him time and again say, I see you and I love who I see. I will fight for you; I will provide for you; I will not abandon you, so step out into your story.

Sensing Winter

2012-01-27T13:15:00.007-06:00

Do you want to know something marvelous about all of you? You checked this blog more frequently this month than in either of my slump months this summer (June and July). Even knowing that I am not currently writing here, you still held onto the hope that something might appear. I think I will probably have over 500 hits this month by the time January is over. Your hope here is lovely, and it has me thinking.

It was almost spring today at Swarthmore. The rain clouds finally burst, almost like a balloon, with overcast grey rapidly rolling back in every direction, and the sun pouring out her heart over the blustery trees and muddy grasses. Finally seeing the blue sky from my office window, I stole away from the Writing Center without a jacket to go for a walk. I opened the outer door of my building, and I felt myself get nearly swept away by the wind. It swooped in and swirled around my long flowy skirt and all of my curls were whipped up and twisted even further together. As the wind pushed me forward, my boots squished through the grass, making that delightful muddy sound only boots can.

My walk both began and concluded with the Rose Garden where my Mom and I spent a good amount of time walking the evening after I signed the lease on my apartment here. Back then in June there were rose bushes from all over the world that were thriving and blooming, some requiring me to bend over to smell them and others reaching above my head. Now in January they have all been shockingly trimmed down, branches cut off near the root and only thorns showing. Taking a seat on the bench that rests at the heart of the winding walkway of bushes, I found myself exposed among the bramble that normally provides intimacy and beauty. I sat there awhile in the reality of winter.

While sitting, I found myself mindful that everything about the day, though not necessarily beautiful, had its own distinct grace. The cold wind and crisp sunshine and clipped bushes create such anticipation and hope. I found myself smiling as I thought of how glad I will be to see the roses again and how neat it is that I have had the opportunity to miss them. It is so tempting for me to choose contempt or annoyance or grief when a season of winter comes into my life. And don't get me wrong, it can be a very painful season.

Still, how magnificent is it to get to miss roses? How wonderful to ache for special friends? How glorious to close our eyes and picture sacred memories, aware that they will come alive again one day? How awesome to miss the wholeness of heaven, something we haven't even tasted yet?

And yes, to feel the beauty of longing is to choose vulnerability and a certain level of exposure. But it all breeds hope. What are you missing out on by not engaging your seasons of winter? Where are you shutting down longing and missing the chance to anticipate roses?

Thank you for hoping here.

Closing Thoughts

2011-12-25T15:54:00.007-06:00

Merry Christmas!!!

I started this post early in the day, and now it is late-- the last hour of Christmas. It's been quite a month on my end; finishing well feels challenging. Where is it best to conclude?

I woke up at 7:03 this morning. Steven had set an alarm for 6:59 and the two of us were the first ones awake for Christmas. There was a mountain of presents and our stockings were all stuffed. As more and more Johnsons awoke, we unwrapped our stockings, sipped coffee and began the laughter and the joy of the day.

Soon Jonathan, a friend of the family, arrived to spend the first part of Christmas with us and to bring over the first and best gift of Christmas: a puppy that my parents, he and I had gone to pick up last week and that Jonathan has been caring for. Meet Bailey:

She is six weeks old and so, so sweet. I loved holding her throughout the day; I loved laying down on the floor of my room and watching as she wiggled closer and closer to me, finally snuggling up next to me to fall asleep. She is gonna work out just fine with this family ;)

Apart from Bailey, I am wondering what to share from the day. The gifts were lovely and the time with family and friends delightful. The Christmas feast was superb and the day came to a close well lived, I think.

And now that I am living the last few minutes of Christmas, I find myself floating back to some words I heard this morning: words about meeting God in the middle of the places where He invites us to be with Him instead of demanding a meeting with God in the places where we expect Him to be with us. This morning, I was asked to consider what it might look like to meet God in stillness this holiday instead of in busyness.

. . .

A few days later. After writing what you just read, I shut down my computer and sought some space where I really was quiet with God. And now, having given myself some space from Christmas day, I am more aware of and grateful for the meaning of God With Us. This Christmas season, I have seen that Jesus enters into our hopes and fears . . . that he not only came to the manger to provide salvation but he remains, being with us again and again, drawing us into the uncomfortable places of faith where we wonder if things will truly work out and where God then answers the questions of our hearts.

There is no way that I have fully captured all that stirred and was birthed in my heart this December, but I think writing allowed me to enter that space of faith and curiosity more frequently this season. I am grateful that you have participated in this month and wish you a beautiful new year as I return to my currently private blog. I am sure we will meet up again someday soon, and I hope that as you enter 2012, you will let yourself ask the question, "Where will I be with God this year?"

Much love, Katy.

Learning to MeRrY

2011-12-22T12:24:00.005-06:00

I am sitting in Starbucks, listening to Coldplay, staring at some shockingly large paper snowflakes, and sipping chai tea. It is a good day.

As I type, I am staring at my Starbucks cup: the brick red Christmas edition, complete with hipster snowflakes, an awkward dog and stiff sledder, and its brown recycled sleeve. The cup reads, "Let's Rediscover why we're best friends" and I roll my eyes just a little; it seems cheesy-- can't we have sayings of more substance for Christmas? I then turn to the sleeve and read Starbuck's holiday theme for this year: "Let's Merry." And now my scorn has grown: What does that even mean?! How frivolous and superficial.

I have had that thought each time I have entered a Starbucks this season. And now, as I am sipping my chai latte, I am curious where this contempt stems from...

Let's Merry.

Let us Merry.

Let. A word that captures invitation, hope, and intention. A risky and willful choice to engage the season.

Us. The most basic embodiment of relationship, togetherness, unity, and connection. A choice not to isolate during this season.

Merry. "Laughingly happy; festively joyous; hilarious; full of cheerfulness; joyous disposition or spirit" Stems from the Middle English word meri- delightful.

What a poignant phrase for the season of Christ's birth. Again, where is my contempt coming from?

Wait, it gets better.

Psalm 126.3- "The Lord has done great things for us; whereof we merry."

Proverbs 15.13- "A merry heart makes a cheerful countenance, but by sorrow of the heart, the spirit is broken."

Psalm 113.9- "He makes the barren woman to keep house and to be the merry mother of children. Praise the Lord."

So merriness is the response we are to have to God's goodness and gifts? And maybe perhaps we were made to merry?

Looking at the original words in Proverbs 15.13, we see that in making a cheerful countenance, a merry heart makes "something good or right or beautiful" and that a heart without merriment, a heart full of sorrow, makes the spirit "stricken," as if it has been afflicted with a disease of death.

Jesus came that we could merry once more. Jesus came that we could play, drink, dance, laugh, and party (if you don't believe me, check out the other verses where the people of God were made merry). It is the desire of my Father that I merry. Not that I be serious or somber, not that I ensure I take on the full weight of this season, but that I merry. So my scorn for merriment comes from a very small and faithless part of my soul. Making merry is not frivolous; it is imperative to our being; it is a reflection of the heart of our loving Father.

On that note, take a friend to Starbucks and

Let's Merry.

Unlocked

2011-12-20T00:08:00.003-06:00

This evening was a night of Christmas shopping and conversation; it was a playful but grown up space with questions and stories and dreams of surprises on Christmas morning; I enjoyed the time.

Upon returning home, I looked down and realized that the key from my necklace was missing. It was a sickening moment. I created the necklace a couple of years ago, the week I officially decided not to go to med school and found myself wondering what was most true about me and where God would take me next. That weekend, my parents and grandparents were in town and I ended up buying the necklace and three charms to remind me of the woman God made me to be and of the road He has for me to travel.

The first charm read “Take the Road Less Traveled” ;) and on the flip side it had an arrow and read “Right Here.” Of course that charm is fairly obvious; it is an encouragement for me that here on the road less traveled God is meeting me, and it is a reminder that this is the road I want to continue to travel on.

The next charm is a shoe; it is an elegant and sophisticated reminder of the unique path I have tread. It represents the ins and outs of my story, where I had been and my ability to keep walking forward.

Then there is the key. It is old fashioned and large. I chose it because I sometimes need to remember that I hold something precious inside me that is worth sharing and unlocking. The key says that I am not simple or superficial; my presence is a gift that is worth pursuing. I am not cheap, predictable, or all accessible. But get to know me and yes, I will let you hold what is stirring inside of me.

Latter in my life, Allison would add another charm to the chain: a sterling silver engraving of my name so I will never forget my face or my identity.

And then, as mentioned at the beginning of this month, Mom gave me a charm for the season reading “Believe.”

And while the necklace has been worn frequently this month; I have focused on the "Believe" charm more than the others. It is therefore incredibly curious to me that tonight, in the middle of this season of new kinds of risking and hoping and believing, I lost the reminder that what I offer is lovely.

You see, loosing the key reminded me of its truth and it reminded me of the lack of control I have in my life: every good and perfect gift in my life has come as God in his goodness has dropped it in my lap. I cannot force my will; I can only have faith in His. So will I choose to be a gift in the middle of the unpredictable and will I hope for what feels impossible? Will I offer myself even though I can’t control the responses of others? Will I trust that God is leading me towards something greater than I can imagine?

After realizing my key was gone, my Dad called the restaurant we ate dinner at, just in case. They called back later, asking us to describe the key, and upon searching beneath my seat, they found it. Apparently it had dropped into my lap, unnoticed.

God is surprising me with his words for me these days. And I am stepping forward with Him, my heart unlocked. What about you?

Merry Christmas.

Tell It!

2011-12-18T20:51:00.007-06:00

After a long day of travel and a great evening of fun, I realized that last night I missed my opportunity to blog. Ah well; it is appropriate sometimes to break routines for something new.

All of this to say, 36 hours into being home, I can say with certainty that the party at the Johnson house has officially begun. At church this morning we concluded the service singing "Go Tell It on the Mountain." Classic Christmas song; I love it's proclamation of Christ's good news and its soulful engagement of the Christmas story. As we sang, it seemed only appropriate that a few moves be broken out in honor of the song's message. This brought my family a great deal of joy . . . I don't know if it brought anyone else joy; we were in the front row and I couldn't see anyone else.

The rest of the day was filled with sweet conversation with a dear friend from college visiting Kalamazoo, cooking for a family Christmas party tomorrow, and late night stories in the kitchen with the fam and another friend. It was a great day . . . and there were multiple moments for me that felt a little like dancing in church to "Go Tell It on the Mountain." There were multiple moments when I wondered, "Am I little too much right now?" And the people around me responded with laughter and joy, totally embracing my play and playing in return.

I am grateful that the people around me encourage me to dance and to play and to risk. It is delightfully consistent with the gospel and Jesus, who came that we might have life and have it abundantly.

So Go Tell It,

Merry Christmas.

Do not be afraid . . .

2011-12-16T21:58:00.001-06:00

My last day of work in 2011. Wow. The semester has flown by; it is scary how quickly everything has moved. Today as I was wrapping things up in the office, my boss offered me my job again for next year; she asked that I think about the offer over Christmas Break.

It felt affirming to know that she would like to have me around for another year, and it is nice to know that I have a set amount of time before me now to make the decision. There is a lot that goes into this decision this time: a) the safety and comfort of a known job for next year that I truly enjoy,without the added curveballs of being new b)partnering up with a friend and attempting to find a new job in a new city c)taking myself seriously on the whole having roots idea and moving to Kalamazoo to invest in life there.

I have some pretty strong leanings already towards the choice that I think requires the most faith of me. But regardless of leanings, Christmas will be a time that I must ask myself what I will carry and birth in this coming year. My heart has much to ponder these coming weeks.

I'll be home for christmas

2011-12-15T22:09:00.005-06:00

Home. Within 40 hours I will be there. I remember last year, flying out from Rhodes to come to Michigan. I arrived on the day when we were cleaning our new house, preparing to move all of our stuff into it. At that point, my family had been without our own space for almost 6 months. During those months, Dad would laughingly tell friends we were homeless, and I would burn with a mixture of pain and irritation because it was true. I was uprooted and raw as I left for school the fall of last year. School felt like relief: it was a known space where I was living with friends in a real house all our own. And that brought comfort to my heart, but it did not heal the very real wound still present. When I left for Rhodes knowing my family would soon move, I genuinely wondered if I would ever feel at home again.

Then God. God provided the dream house. I remember the day the truck came and we made that house ours. I remember us all rediscovering our life together as we unwrapped memory after memory; it was like waking up to something precious and true that had long been sleeping. I remember being stunned at God's extravagance--how He took care of each of us so perfectly in caring for our family as a whole. Life began anew for my family last Christmas; how kind of God to marry the miracle of our year with the season of miracles.

Home from Tracy Johnson on Vimeo.

I suppose I will now always associate Christmas with the beauty of coming home. That's what I am feeling this year, still uprooted in some ways while more grounded in others. I don't want to ignore the truth that it does feel like I am going home on Saturday. The family (both old and new) waiting for me and the promise of growing friendships feel like a continued invitation from God to settle into Kazoo and let my roots grow, drinking in the joy of this season of gifts.

Merry Christmas.

Blocked

2011-12-14T22:28:00.002-06:00

I have been typing and deleting words on this post for a while now, having a hard time figuring out exactly what I want to say. The temptation inside of me to not write tonight is strong. In some ways my thoughts feel beyond words.

. . .

I did put some words to what is going on for me and not to worry, it is good stuff. But I am not ready to share it yet. I know that must feel like a tease, but I wanted you to know that I am making good on the promise to write each day, even if you don't get to read my thoughts yet.

I will leave you with a question though, "Would you step out with Him if it meant changing everything?"

merry christmas

Books, Dreams, and Things

2011-12-13T22:48:00.003-06:00

I stumbled upon this link today of someone's take on the 25 most beautiful college libraries in the world. They are breathtaking aren't they? I love libraries.

Are you ready to judge me a little bit? Part of me is wishing I was in one of those libraries today, writing a paper for my final project in a class. When I had research papers at Rhodes, I would wander up to the literature section of the library and start pulling out relevant books, making a giant stack next to me. Then I would sink down in the stacks and just read for a while, finding a favorite carrel afterward where I could write or research more. I remember some of those moments very fondly (others not so much ;) ). The work was hard and so challenging. But I loved it. I think I miss that work and the Barrett Library most at this time of year.

People have come up to me this year asking if I am so glad that I don't have to write any papers for finals. I laugh because they would all look at me like I was crazy if I said, "Actually, no. I miss it." And to clarify, I don't want the insanity of writing multiple papers on topics that don't interest me. But I miss the depth and meaning of those readings, I miss the class discussions, I miss thinking that way, I miss that writing, I miss sitting in a breathtaking library with a giant Christmas tree nearby as I analyze literature in a completely new way.

I am not ready for my days in libraries to be through. I have more thoughts to think and readings to read and writings to write. I hope that one December in the next couple of years will find me in one of these 25 libraries, finishing up a thesis so I can come home; that's the dream anyway.

Merry Christmas.

Fa la la la la LA LA LA LA!

2011-12-12T23:12:00.002-06:00

You know what is great? I have now been caught loudly car singing 3 times in the past 3 weeks. Each time I suddenly turn to the side and someone is there, staring at me behind a car window with a huge grin. Based on the expressions, I am pretty sure I make those people's days. And each time, I laugh and turn back to the music to continue singing.

Life is better with car singing. Today, I was singing to Michael Buble's new Christmas album. And I am not always a Michael "Bubble" fan, but today it was an excellent choice.

Car singing-- do it. ;)

Merry Christmas.

Katy's Best Friend

2011-12-11T21:58:00.003-06:00

I was riding the train home this evening when I opened to the first page of a book Emily gave me prior to leaving their home. The book is one of her favorites, passed on to her by a friend. She wanted to continue the tradition and pass the book on to me.

The book is a modern memoir, praised by one of my favorite authors, covering one woman's relationship with God and with grace. I read about a page and snapped the book shut, uncertain that I wanted to open the book again.

On page one of One Thousand Gifts, the author as a four year old watches her mother grasping the body of her toddler sister, bloodied from a dreadful accident on the farm road with a mail truck. She writes that that day, her heart snapped shut to a loving God, and it took decades for it to open.

No one should tread into that beginning lightly, but there was something uniquely unsettling in it for me. You see, I was four once and I have a memory in my mind of my mother holding my toddler sister, blood spilling out of her head. And I was so young, I can't be sure how much of the memory is real and how much of it I have constructed in the aftermath to help process the story. But I remember nothing from the day my sister cracked her head open save a snapshot with sound: My sister is gathered in my mother's arms, and Mom and Dad are searching for the wound through the blood covering her face. Mom finds it and tells Dad she can see my sister's skull through the slice on her forehead. Through it all, my sister is screaming. In my mind, I watch this all happening in our kitchen as I sit small in the living room. And there are no words to put to the thoughts that accompany the memory because as a four year old I could not comprehend what I was seeing; I feel only fear and unrest as I recall that memory.

There is something deeply disturbing for me in hearing a similar story without the sister's screams of pain . . . without the sister's screams of life. I cannot imagine what my life would mean if my memory of that day held none of Allison's screams. A couple days ago, the last time Allison and I talked, Allison called after watching some slight relational drama play out for me via the internet (oh the marvels of social networking). She asked how I was doing and I laughed, still choosing to give her the honest answer. "I know it isn't that big of a deal," she said, "And Steven told me I shouldn't even call to bring it up, but I told him, 'That's what best friends do, and I am Katy's Best Friend.'"

Her words hung foggy in my brain for a few moments and then settled somewhere between my chest and my stomach. She didn't say that I was her Best Friend, me being the strong one who steps in to offer what is needed. No, this time she named herself as the Best Friend, as if that statement was the most natural and absolute certainty of life. And perhaps she said it that way because it is one of the most natural and absolute certainties of my life. And maybe we've both known that all along, since 4 and 2. And maybe page one of this memoir feels like icy knives in my throat because for a moment, I had to think "What if?" and my world felt very lonely.

One day, page one of my memoir won't start that way. Thank you, God. Allison, I love you, Best Friend.

Merry Christmas.

Costly Gifts for the King

2011-12-10T22:08:00.002-06:00

Tonight, I sat up late with the couple whose house I am staying at. Adam read aloud to Emily and me from this pretty amazing book, written by a guy whose a Christian, came from privilege, and felt deeply convicted about the poverty he would witness and leave behind during the course of his drive home from church on a weekly basis. This experience prompted Mike and one of his close friends to live on the streets for 5 months in 6 of the U.S.'s biggest cities. They wanted to be the church and experience the church from a place of great need; they wanted to understand how the American church was treating 'the least of these'. The book that Mike has written as a result of that experience is compelling to say the least. The honest and engaging manner in which he shares his story is both perceptive and inviting, leaving me curious about truly radical living in the name of Christ.

Mike's story makes me wonder, "What gifts am I going to give in the coming 12 months that will be costly?" Sure, I can spend money at Christmas time and yes, I can actually volunteer X amount of hours or do X amount of tithing, or whatever. But what will I give/do that will call for great faith in who God is and in what He is doing to claim the hearts of his people? What will I give that will make me stop and think, "Oh God! Am I going crazy?" Because if it isn't that risky, is it really faith? And if it isn't faith, is it really love?

What do you think?

Merry Christmas.

Could it really be?!

2011-12-09T21:17:00.003-06:00

I am enjoying the company of some dear family friends for the weekend, and they will be creeping into my blog for the next few days.

Today kind of felt like traveling to the North Pole. I walked away from my apartment, hopped on a train to take me to 30th Street Station and found myself keenly aware that trains are just better at Christmas time. As the train pulled into the central Philadelphia station, I grabbed my bag and sauntered into the station. As I came into full view of the high ceiling, the ornate columns, and the golden glow of that space, my smile grew wide. I could hear the subtle clicking of the station boards, flipping letters to read new times and trains pulling out of the station. There were different stairways for different platforms and a corner market of exquisite flowers from poinsettias to a wide selection of roses to some contented sunflowers to exotic bouquets with long stems and unknown blooms. Near the flower corner was a bakery with dozens of sweet breads and pastries and a coffee cart stood nearby selling soothing drinks. I took the whole space in, delighted with the feel of it.

Here is a picture that I snapped of the big Christmas tree in the center of the train station.

After buying some coffee from the little cart (I wanted to feel a part of everything), I boarded my train and leaned back in my big, blue comfy seat. The train felt luxurious, unlike any I had ever ridden on. Then I watched for an hour as small towns rolled passed and the sun began to set on rolling hills of Pennsylvania. I saw farms and rivers as the moon sat in the purple and red sky and the mists began to roll in. It was unreal enough that I began to wonder if maybe I was on the Polar Express and we were really going to an unknown magical place.

Upon arrival, I was picked up by my dear friends and their five dear children and they carted me off to nearby Hershey, PA where we saw the Hershey chocolate factory and then entered the giant, festive Candy Land attached to factory. The trees were all lit and the front of the park looked like a quaint small town all decked up for Christmas. Together we rode the Merry-Go-Round and the real steam engine train. We laughed and played and had a great time. Then we headed home for some tea. It really was an adventure beyond imagining, full of something innocent and child-like. Yes, that feeling tasted sweet, coming from a girl who has enough years to fully savor it now.

Where will you engage with child-like wonder this season?

Merry Christmas!

Do you see what I see?

2011-12-08T19:52:00.008-06:00

I am in the Writing Center working tonight. People all around me are reading papers, preparing for their conferences. It is so busy that even though I am the receptionist for the evening, I had a conference too, earlier this shift.

As I read the intake form for the conference, I noticed that the girl believed her paper to be a mess. I read the paper through and thought I must be slipping for I didn't really see a mess at all. Sure, I had some suggestions for clarity and strengthening the argument, but the heart of the paper was good. She showed up with her hair in a ball cap and some sweats on, classic finals attire. We sat down and I began to try and hear her fears about this paper, and I began to try and show her that she had written it well. I asked her to highlight various kinds of evidence in her paper, demonstrating that she had thoroughly accounted for her points and convincingly demonstrated a claim. We moved through the paper, brainstorming some changes but also identifying that this argument was well reasoned.

And I could feel her body still tense; she didn't believe me yet. We approached her conclusion and I caught the tears in her voice before she let them leak from her eyes. "What are you feeling right now?" I asked. "This has just been so hard. It has taken me so long and I am not even saying anything. Everything I have written is all so obvious."

She had worked so hard that she had flipped herself upside down and couldn't find her way anymore. She couldn't see what I saw. And you want to know the unfortunate irony? As she was crying and lacking confidence, I was wondering inside if I was messing this whole thing up and hadn't chosen the best way to work with her. I was wondering if I was missing her learning style or hadn't spent enough time clarifying the plan for the conference. I was flipping myself upside down, to the point that in caring for this girl, I didn't offer all that I could have because I was doubting myself.

I did recover and she left the conference feeling more secure in her paper and more sure of herself; I left the conference curious about that moment where we had both experienced uncertainty.

I wonder how often God looks at me and asks, "Do you not see what I see?" His heart must break over the ways in which I try so hard that I forget what is true about me and about Him. What happens that flips me upside down, leaving me scared to believe that I am good enough? that I belong? that I am lovely? What happens that leaves me believing that "everything I have written is all so obvious"?

I wish I could do that moment over again, for her and for me. I have things I want to say to her, and I wish I could give her the fullness of my face. And yet this time, as I felt doubt, God forced me to watch my doubts embodied in another, and he let me ask the question, "Sweet heart, how do you not see what I see?"

Merry Christmas from a lovely woman, writing something interesting.

Christmas Pondering

2011-12-07T21:27:00.008-06:00

You remember the story of the shepherds? You remember in Luke when the host of heavenly angels tells them where to find the Christ child and the shepherds go and see the baby and then proclaim his birth to everyone they meet? And do you remember Mary's response to these Christmas events?

"Mary kept all of these things, and pondered them in her heart."

I love this verse. It reminds me that there is space in the Christmas story for everything I feel. That word used for Mary's pondering is συμβάλλω, and it literally means to throw together. There was a tension present in Mary's heart as she held the events of her Christmas morning. I don't know all of what Mary felt, but I do know that Scripture tells us it was all colliding inside of her that morning.

There is something sacred in Mary's willingness to ponder. Mary didn't ignore the story God wrote that morning, she didn't numb herself to it, she didn't try to control or understand all of it, she didn't come with her own agenda. Mary remained present and curious in the midst of God's tale and let herself feel and hold everything in her heart: from her doubts and joys, to the stable, to the shepherds, to the angels, to her husband, to the savior in her arms.

What will you choose to fully feel and hold this Christmas? What will you ponder in your heart and where will you let God meet you in the midst of pondering? I would like to put some more words to some of what I am pondering for myself. Perhaps that can happen in the coming weeks.

Merry Christmas.

Light meeting Dark

2011-12-06T21:57:00.002-06:00

Welcome. I am tag teaming tonight. Read and listen to the musings of a couple other Johnsons and then bounce back here.

For me, Mom and Steve didn't just strike a chord, they strummed the whole guitar. I know what it feels like to experience fear over corners of darkness in my heart. I know the deep joy of having those corners brought into the light, and I know the healing of being clothed in truth and love as others surround me. I know the joy of caring for those who have also chosen to risk walking in light, even when they hold doubts that God or anyone else could love them in the midst of what they have done or suffered. I know the legitimate shame of withholding my light from a life drowning in darkness because I fear how my light will be received. And I know that I still have crevices of darkness, cracks where I let myself get lost because I haven't fully invited Light to enter and be truth in the midst of my pain. I know, God . . . I know.

Reading back over that list, I realize that I have experienced all of those emotions within the past 5 days and that the battle between Light and darkness is waged daily. And the question I am left with is who will I be in the battle, even in light of past mistakes, who will I be now?

And who will you be? A source of truth, a well of loveliness, a warrior king? Never forget that we were chosen for such a time and a place as this; our calling is to do battle with evil and to pursue the hearts of the lost. So who will we be to one another and the world?

Merry Christmas.

Christmas JOY

2011-12-05T19:57:00.009-06:00

I have been pondering all day what I would write this evening; I still haven't made up my mind yet.

I might be suffering from a case of over-thinking today. Because at the end of the day words are just words, and life is not chess. Not everything needs to be mapped out.

It is odd to have so much time to think about Christmas this year. I was telling Bethany last night that normally I am neck high in papers around this time of year. And recalling all of the papers and the work, I am remembering that Christmas became a place of fun and silliness, especially for the past two years. I began to invite more and more fun out of Christmas. And Christmas was more than up for the challenge.

I suppose we can start junior year, the year I bought an eight-inch pre-lit tree made entirely of bright silver tinsel. It was the most gaudy thing I have ever bought in the name of Christmas. I brought home and lit up the tree, and my roommate Tiffany returned to Voorhies 207 completely delighted (it was 207, right?). We soon discovered the tree was so light that if we bumped the chord with a foot, the tree would come sailing off the television where it lived. It was ghetto; but awesome.

Later that week, Tiffany's parents were in town. Tiffany shared with her mom that we had a small tree and her mom asked eagerly if we had decorated it. "No," Tiffany explained with a laugh, "It is a little small for that." The next day, I was writing one of my final papers and Tiffany walked into our room with a very perplexed and disconcerted look on her face. "What?" I asked. "My mom bought us a bunch of ornaments for our little tree. And I don't understand! What are we supposed to do with all of this stuff?! It won't fit on the tree and she is going to be disappointed if we don't use it . . . and, and . . . ."

By this point I had the bag open and a rather large grin on my face. "Oh this will be great!!!"

K, Tiffany's face in this picture may have healing powers. Don't you feel better after seeing it? I'm just sayin'

Notice not all of the ornaments fit on the tree; the fuchsia beaded garland kinda got in the way. We improvised nicely though (no nose ornament I am sad to report; my nose was still innocent back in those days). I think we accidentally kicked that tree off the TV 17 times during finals week and each time more ornaments would shatter and we would sweep them up, laughing uproariously. We ended that semester listening to Christmas music, staring at the tree, and rolling fuzzy dice to help us get through our exams: "K, if its odd we eat an oreo; if it is even we study one more hour; if it is snake eyes we run for donuts!" "Deal."

The next year, one of my housemates bought a Christmas tree . . . and it sat downstairs with lights and no decorations for about a week. And Tiffany and I, having experienced the joys of yuletide absurdity, were fairly certain this needed to change. Fortunately, this same roommate had recently received a piñata from her mother, which our other roommate, thanks to a compulsive sweet tooth, had taken the liberty of emptying via a sketchy hole in the abdominal region of said ass. This incision, when made slightly larger, was shockingly conducive to serving as the hole required for a tree topper. Cue Santa Hat and Viola:

Yeah he was a little creepy :)

But he brought a lot of joy.

I am looking forward to some more fun-filled Christmas memories. They won't revolve around finals this year, but I am excited for new stories with friends :)

Merry Christmas.

Dwelling Places

2011-12-04T21:32:00.002-06:00

Today in church my pastor talked about Psalm 90. I will be honest, I struggled to pay attention the entire message, save for one point. He talked about his childhood home where he and his siblings still return every single year for holidays so they can all once again be family together. He called that home, that place of returning, his family's dwelling place and then he mapped that directly onto God's relationship with us. God is a place where we are fully known and seen, enjoyed and cared for. God is a place of memories and faithfulness, of celebration and new life. God is a safe haven, always welcoming, always ready for us to come back to him.

I loved the comparison my pastor drew; it rang true to how God designed the family to reflect his heart for each of us. My family's process of returning is beginning even as I type; Allison may be boarding her plane in Venice now. I am eager to follow suit in a couple of weeks. It is time for us to dwell with one another again.

Merry Christmas.

Let there be Light

2011-12-03T18:11:00.013-06:00

As Christmas approaches, I thought it might be cool to read Christmas passages from the Septuagint this year, and I am not reading it every day, but every few days I pull it out and pick a different passage. Today I went to John, which some might argue is the only gospel that lacks a Christmas story. I beg to differ.

If I had the energy this evening, I would transcribe the verses for you so you could see how the Greek matches up with English in John 1. But I don't have that kind of energy, so you will have to trust my eyes this time. Let's start on the same page, have a read:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.

There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. This man came for a witness, to bear witness of the Light, that all through him might believe. He was not that Light, but was sent to bear witness of that Light. That was the true Light which gives light to every man coming into the world.He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him. He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him. But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name: who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.

John 1:1-14(NKJV)

There were a few words I saw that left me surprised: "the darkness did not comprehend [κατέλαβεν] it" and "His own did not receive [παρέλαβον] Him, but as many did receive him [λαβον]" Do you see it? The words are linked; they have the same root. And in this passage, that matters. The words stem from λαμβάνω [to take or receive].

καταλαμβάνω means to seize, to squash, to capture, to check or bind by oath. It's connotations are violent and repressive.

παραλαμβάνω means to take in pledge, to marry, to take possession of, to invite, to receive, to hear. It's connotations are relational and participatory.

So what does that all mean? Let's return to the story.

There was once a powerful darkness. For thousands of years we existed in its realm and it dominated our being. We were creatures of shadow-- fallen, lost, directionless. And then, came Light. And Light was different. For try as it might, darkness could not conquer it. Light--the creative word, the living voice-- shown into the darkness and darkness' attacks were made meaningless. It could not seize, let alone repress this life.

Yes, life. John continues, Light is our means of living. And therefore this Light of Christ represented being as we had only known in the beginning, before the darkness; this Light was transformative, restorative, and relational. Where darkness could not touch Light, Light came to envelop us, for we are Light's own. He came to ask for our hand, he came to tell us our names, he came that we might take possession of him and be saved. And He asked only that we believe that He was and is the living savior, that He came for us, and that in Him darkness would never touch us again. He came to be with us, he came in overwhelming glory from the Father.

And based on what we just read, if we were to watch Christmas unfold from John's perspective, the closest depiction I could give to you would be this:

And this:

"He came to his own, and . . . as many as received him, to them he gave the right to become children of God."

Merry Christmas.

Merry Christmas, Charlie Brown!

2011-12-02T21:46:00.010-06:00

I got out of work early today and headed to Trader Joe's for that Christmas Tree. What awaited me was an adorable display of live potted pines. And it turns out, I couldn't resist buying two (they were so awesome and so cheap!)

The first is in a pot that reads JOY and it is going to chill out in my bathroom.

Note the sparkles: TOTALLY LEGIT!

The other is residing on my dining room table. I picked it out and thought with joy of the decorating I would do on this tiny shrub of a tree. A quick visit to the Target dollar bin left me with ornaments, lights, and a star for the top of the tree. Target was all out of the 50 light strand, so I bought the 100. I mean after all, how many lights is 100? Not that many, surely.

I raced home so I wouldn't miss a Skype date with Allison and began decorating the tree as we chatted. She was offering numerous snickers throughout the decorating process, which began as I pulled the lights out from their box and did a little size comparison with my tree. Hmm, what I really need here is a strand of about 15 lights instead of 100. Clearly, my anticipation to decorate strongly enhanced the size of my tree . . . by about 3 feet. Ah well.

On to the ornaments. This went well. I had guessed the right amount and while they were a little big, I was digging the vibe they sent (which was slightly Bo-Jankity). I did begin to notice, however, that my tree had a slight tilt to one side.

Next was the star. It was actually an ornament that I was going to stick on the top of the tree. And here is how that turned out:

The eruption of laughter that spanned across continents as I placed the star on top and Allison watched on Skype must be noted. She in fact left the screen as she collapsed upon her bed howling. And at this point a normal person would have conceded the topper to be a lost cause instead of using ornament hooks to wire it to various branches in an attempt to create more balance. This was not the case with me, which brought Allison additional laughter, and her laughter brought me laughter as I sat with hooks situated in my mouth and a look of consternation at the poor plight of my tree.

So the topper came off, and the curious little penguin fellow who came with the tree was placed back in the pot, and there was much rejoicing:

yay.

It really is a good little tree and now it's little crooked form will remind me of Allison and of Charlie Brown. You know the scene in a Charlie Brown Christmas, right? The one where Charlie Brown begins to decorate his little tree and walks away defeated. As I looked at my tree topper and my burdened tree, i commented to Allison that it was the Charlie Brown tree, and to be honest I felt a twinge of defeat. "Yeah," she said "but you don't have children to wave their arms back and forth around your tree and make it magically better" (hand gestures were included with this comment. consult above clip for visual demonstration). I smiled at her and took the topper off, the tree springing upright again. She was right, and I would just have to approach this experience differently.

These weeks surrounding Christmas are not going to look like what I think they will. And that doesn't mean they won't be wonderful. That is a certain truth that I am wanting to hold right now.

Merry Christmas.

PS- I promise to tell you this month some of my tree stories from past years; they are really quite excellent.

Hear the Bells Chime

2011-12-01T21:50:00.009-06:00

"The time draws near the birth of Christ: The moon is hid; the night is still; The Christmas bells from hill to hill Answer each other in the mist"

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

There is a stretch of road on my way to work that is situated between two rather old churches. And if you happen upon the spot at the top of the hour, and if the light in front of you turns red, you rest for about a minute in the cacophony of sounds that emanate from the bell towers of the two churches. 9am has found me stopped at that light the past 3 days in a row

. . . not till today was I curious about the significance of that minute from 9:00 to 9:01.

That minute matters because I know where bells take me back to. If I close my eyes, I can still hear the bells at Oxford, folded into my memory of English Tuesday evenings. Of course the bells played Sunday, but every Tuesday, the ringers would gather to practice together and the peals could be heard throughout the city. I could pull on a sweatshirt, crack the window that looked out to an enclosed garden, and read Shakespeare while the bells played. And on certain days, Shakespeare would be set aside and I would write or just listen while sipping tea.

Shall I tell you what is so glorious about the bells that played on Tuesday evenings in Oxford? It was the sudden beauty they infused into the regularity of a weekday evening. The bells of Tuesday were a little more reckless and a little more lavish than those of proper Sunday. They anticipated and hoped for Sunday wildly, inviting the town to pause. So for 15 minutes every Tuesday, I would wait for life to start again as the bells beckoned expectation. There was a divinity present in the bells of Tuesday that Sunday's never captured. Sunday tolled for the King; Tuesday tolled for a Man of regular weekday evenings.

Those bells. They bear tidings of Christmas even as they stir in my memory. Such life and joy and hope comes with their peals. I need to sit in that some more.

Where do bells ring in your memory? Can you feel their lolling sway back and forth and back and forth? Will you catch their resonant rings riding the air of these coming December days?

I almost missed the bells today. I almost chose not to remember.

Merry Christmas.

Presence and Gifts

2011-11-30T22:08:00.009-06:00

So we can't really bring up the subject of Christmas without addressing gifts. This evening, my heart is pondering the giving of gifts more than the receiving; actually, my heart is pondering the process behind the giving of gifts-- the pre-gift quest, if you will.

I delight in finding perfect gifts-- you know the ones not on your list that you would not have thought to ask for but that feel beyond wonderful when received? Those are the gifts I look for. And there is something lovely in all of that, some part of God that is reflected through what I see in you and how I celebrate that through gifts. And . . . gift-giving can become a place where I strive to be perfect and puts lots of pressure on myself to not disappoint.

This evening, I was engaging in a little online Christmas shopping. Typically, I am more of a hands on, experiential kind of gift shopper, but with work and homework and traffic and whatever, online shopping has seduced me. At one point, I had multiple tabs and multiple windows from multiple stores with multiple items all staring at me at once. I was mixing and matching and price comparing; it was worse than the pop up virus adds that invade your desktop when you "Click Here!!!" for your online prize (not that I have EVER been one of those people, because that would be PATHETIC. haha . . . ha). Anyway, in the midst of my crazed consideration of all the different options I could select for a Christmas gift, I felt this pressure that I might select the wrong gift and this doubt that the item I was leaning towards wouldn't really be all that awesome.

And because I am blogging everyday till Christmas, we are going back to pick up my heart wherever it fell in the midst of all that doubt and all of those popped up windows.

What if I do not give the perfect gift this year? What if my sister's perfect American Girl Doll figure skating outfit with ice skates, complimentary skating bouquet, and glittered skate guards is backordered until January 6th?! Will the ballet outfit be ok instead ;)

Seeking out gifts reminds me that I am sometimes going to miss some of your heart in the process of loving you. I am going to botch up my words, and I am going to make a terrible mistake and buy you an ugly sweater one year (except you, Allison. That will never be a rift in our relationship). Can I give you my face in the middle of uncertainty and mistakes?

Our hearts best reflect God not in the striving for perfection, but in the willingness to enter the chaos of broken relationships and to love all the more extravagantly. Because that is what Jesus did. He entered the messiness of our world, without feeling the need to come idyllically packaged and announced, and he chose to be with us. For every wound and scar and doubt, he leaned in with kind words and offered truth and light.

I want to lean in too, and I'll try to leave perfection by the wayside.

Merry Christmas

Drinking in the Season

2011-11-29T21:16:00.007-06:00

I am sitting here at my desk with a large Snowman cup of my polar bear tea; it smells like peppermint.

I love that smell. It is one of the smells I save specifically for Christmas time.

The first year of college, I came home for Christmas and Mom had the infamous CoffeMate Peppermint Mocha Creamer waiting for me. We have always bought it every year for our coffee at Christmas. That year, it was the first taste of home that I woke up with after a long night of misconnected flights and a drive home from the Austin airport. That night in Austin, Mom ran up and threw her arms around me, despite the early hour and the long drive back home, and the next morning she handed me coffee with peppermint mocha creamer. And that taste meant that finals were finally over, traditions were being kept, new memories were ready to be made, and Christmas was going to be sweet.

Peppermint Mocha Creamer was waiting each Christmas after that when I came home; Steven and Allison even went on emergency runs to the store, fought against avid Peppermint Mocha fans, and one year had an awkward conversation with a random employee to ensure said creamer was waiting. We take tradition very seriously at the Johnson house.

I love that. I love our traditions. I love that our Christmas trees go up the Friday after Thanksgiving and our lights are strung by the weekend; I love the special hot chocolate mugs with trees on them that everyone will sip from for the next month during the evenings. There are so many small but beautiful aspects of Christmas that my family has taught me to celebrate. We will have to consider those more fully in the coming weeks. But for tonight the question is, "Are you fully stocked on your Christmas drink of choice and who are you inviting over to share in sipping one of your traditions?" (Those of you who have selected eggnog will need to try again unless you can bring me a drink that does not taste like a frightening combination of cough syrup, mold, and raw egg).

Merry Christmas!

Christmas Swagger.

2011-11-28T22:31:00.005-06:00

So I left home yesterday to come back to Pennsylvania and work for 3 weeks before again returning home for the holidays, and the question that I have been pondering for these coming 3 weeks is, "Do I buy a Christmas tree for my apartment when in fact I will not be here for Christmas?"

I have asked myself the question a few times, though the answer is obvious: YES!!

However, said tree does not yet reside in my home. But it will, thanks to Trader Joe's and the tiny Christmas tree shipment coming into the store this next week (to be clear: tiny trees, not tiny shipment). What I have discovered is that Trader Joe's at Christmas time is like the North Pole for grownups. I walked in yesterday anticipating a tree and walked out with raspberry cheese, ready bake souffles, chai tea mix, candy cane green tea polar bear tea, and what I am calling front door pine tree swag (red bow complimentary).

Swag.

Is there a better name for this item? I suggest that there is not.

So I am settling in for the next 19 days, looking forward to lots of tea and sweetness. I'll let you know when the tree arrives. Apparently I will have the option of a sparkle infused tree or a pre-lit tree. Who knew such choices were to be had in the name of merriment? Oh the anticipation!

What about you? Got ya swag on yet?

Merry Christmas.

I myself am having some yuletide doubts.

2011-11-27T22:58:00.003-06:00

Welcome to the holidays. Turkey leftovers are diminishing, Christmas trees are up and decorated (yes, treeS at my house), snappy Christmas tunes echo through homes; cars; and stores all over America, and the season of present purchasing and commercial madness has begun. And I, to quote Cindy Lou Who from The Grinch, am “having some yuletide doubts.”

For the past four years, Christmas has felt . . . ambivalent for me. I come home and fully experience my family: our joy and laughter and cooking and dancing and play and depth. It is a time of celebration, surprise, and light as we give gifts and party (and believe me, we know how it’s done). And it is a time of thoughtfulness as I ponder the hope and ache that were perfectly fused together in the birth of the Child who came to die that the world may come alive. There are more words to put to that; I am not putting them right now.

This year, to begin the season, my mother gave me a necklace charm. The charm reads “believe” on one side, and Santa gazes out from the other side. It is a reminder to let my heart fully celebrate this holiday, to engage with my doubts and to entertain great dreams, to risk being invited to more.

Honoring that reminder, I am planning to write everyday till Christmas and I will write here at this blog. I am not sure where this is going, but I hope you will join me.

Merry Christmas. I’ll see you tomorrow.

Moving beyond the road . . .

2011-11-20T12:40:00.005-06:00

Hey Bloggers,

I have included a post down below that I have been working on for a couple of days and recently published. It belongs to a different blog, a new place that I have started writing. I am expressing some new thoughts and figuring out some new things for myself, and I am choosing to write in a space not open to the public. Maybe it will be open someday, but not right now. So if you are wondering where I have gone with my words, it is there. Perhaps I will double post occasionally and you can check back here to see what is new. It has been a pleasure writing the Road Less Traveled. Thank you for reading.

Katy

I was told tonight by a Pulitzer Prize winner that I had won the lottery of life. He looked out across a room of students and faculty and saw leaders and world changers. And his comment to us and to himself? “What we will do with the responsibility that is ours?”

His words struck me poignantly. He was speaking like we were equals; like our odds of changing the world were the same. And when someone who has just returned from and written about a covert brothel raid in Cambodia strikes up a conversation with you as if your story resounds with the same impact as his recent rescue of dozens of children from the sex trade, you grow curious and you grow thoughtful.

Kristof began the evening with a simple, but profound, premise: “If you travel abroad and find yourself having a good time the entire trip, you are going about the experience all wrong.” We laughed and he joined in. ”But seriously, growth in your life will occur when you are uncomfortable and when you are in that space over your head.”

He went on to demonstrate his point through the stories that leaked out of him as he spoke or answered questions. And what does being in over your head look like?

It looks like humbly hearing the stories of rape victims in Asia who want to fight back against injustice and provide faces to a heinous crime that a vast majority of the world is choosing to ignore, even when that could cost them their freedom and lives; it looks like honoring their wishes as a writer while doing your utmost as a man to protect their identities.

It looks like mourning over a pair of 2 and 5 year old African siblings, clinging to life near a well that they have traveled across a desert to reach because their village was burned and the rest of their family is dead.

It looks like sharing the fear of parents who daily send their smallest children to collect water from wells that are overrun with guerilla warriors who kill the men and rape the women that approach the wells but on good days allow the youngest of children to collect water unharmed. It looks like having the integrity to ask yourself what you would do if you had that choice to make.

It looks like stepping in when a doctor refuses to perform a C-section on a dying mother because it will cost $100, and she will require a blood transfusion, and that is just too much trouble. It looks like paying that $100 and personally volunteering for the transfusion because you are the matching blood-type to the mother.

It looks like sitting with a grandmother from a region of Africa with a strong malaria outbreak and hearing her heartbreak as she confesses that her single mosquito net is only big enough to protect 3 of her 4 grandchildren and each night she must choose one child to sleep outside of the net with herself, aware that child may die as a result of her choice.

It looks like asking a drug lord, who killed the previous member of the media he was interviewed by, about the the murder and destruction and death that has resulted from his actions and inquiring how he would like to respond to his people’s general perceptions of him.

It looks like admitting to yourself that victims and perpetrators alike embellish and that their roles are often reciprocal and self-perpetuating. It looks like realizing that your job is to seek truth and to help break that cycle.

And therefore, it looks like writing. Writing about everything. Writing about everyone. Going back to these places again and again. Choosing to write with your wife, who shares your convictions, choosing to write more and more and more that the world may know and be known. That evil may collide with good because of integrity, and courage, and restoration.

God.

I have been blessed and therefore given responsibility. And now I must ask myself, “Who will you make written, and what will you make right?”

Journeying

2011-10-29T22:10:00.002-05:00

I’m writing. I have been withholding my words because . . . I don’t know, because I am sacred to know them, scared where they will take me, scared they won’t . . . do my heart justice.

I went to a conference over fall break and returned home with my worst joys and best fears realized. I left the conference known, connected, and relationally alive. And as a result, I returned isolated, unkempt, and full of longing— it has been a potent combination for my soul.

I let my clothes explode from my suitcase and linger around my room for a few days upon my return. I knew that putting them away would represent a return to the everyday; I wasn’t ready for that. And while the clothes have been fully put away and the everyday has come with unforgivable consistency, I still don’t quite know what to do with it.

I feel . . . eh, I don’t know— angst? I have tasted something sweet and it works like heroin. Withdrawal pounds in my head and buzzes in my fingertips. And I navigate my days with a flood of reckless hope that such intimacy can grow where I am now, maybe? But what would that even look like? I can’t fabricate that myself.

To continue with the honesty, I am letting myself feel a little freaked out by all that is stirring inside because it leaves me somewhat hesitant about the future. What do I want really? And does what I want mandate that I move to incredible places around the world alone? And do I have what it takes to do that? Do I want to have what it takes?

My soul does not relish the prospect of multiple uprootings, and yet I cannot abide the prospect of a stale existence.

And where is Jesus in the middle of all this and what might he say? Is he leaving me to figure it out on my own? Is he asking for a thought out plan? Is he disappointed at my doubt and that I am somehow not on the road he had hoped I would be on? Is he smoking hookah and letting me know it’ll all be fine? Is he asking me to suspend disbelief?

And what precisely are his words for my current lack of friendships? “Try harder.” “Invest more.” “Trust the charismatic church-goers.” “Wait.” “Facebook message him.” “Email her.” “Be.” ? I don’t know. I have no idea what Jesus is really asking or waiting for. I wish we could throw some freshly skinned fish in some pancake batter, sprinkle it with Lowry’s, then fry it up over a beach campfire with the waves of the lake crashing nearby. I wish I could look into his eyes and hear . . . whatever it is that he would say. I am pretty sure whatever he would say this time would involve his kind, piercing eyes and some laughter in his voice. It would be playful.

And so yes, I’m writing. Because I am sacred, but not too scared.

"in this moment there is life and food For future years. And so I dare to hope Though changed, no doubt, from what I was..."

2011-09-28T17:41:00.018-05:00

The paper was a train wreck. I took a long sip of Earl Gray and perused it again, searching for clues of the author's learning style. How was I going to connect with her and what on earth would I focus our conference on? I set the paper down for a moment; it was so odd to read this piece on one of my favorite poems by one of my favorite writers. It has now been years since I wrote on the poem being discussed; now I came to it with fresh eyes and new questions.

She stepped through the doorway early, quiet and nervous. "Hello," I beamed, "Are you my 3:45?"

"Yes, I think so. Are you Kathryn?"

"Yes," I smiled, the online schedule only provided my full name, "Why don't you take a seat and I will be with you shortly."

The minutes till our meeting time ticked away steadily. There was nothing for it; she would have to direct our conference and I would take my cues from her. I took a seat next to her on the couch and pushed her paper away from both of us. "How are you feeling about the paper?" I asked as a way of introduction.

"Good. Although I am nervous that my thesis does not fully address everything that my paper covers."

I thought of all of the places her paper went-- from the shortcomings of memory, to forms of physical pleasure, to the ways the poem engages the past and present, to the sense of loss attached to memory in the poem, to the role of literary theory in informing this poem, to the pleasure associated with creating poetry, to the tradeoffs a poet must make as he writes. "Yes," I commented, "that may be a good place to start."

I grabbed a violently yellow piece of paper, looked in her eyes, and asked, "What is the most important thing that people should walk away from your paper knowing?"

"Hmm . . . people should know that this poem is a kind of meta-poem, reflecting the poet's beliefs about poetry in general."

Curse professors who invent phrases like 'meta-poem'. "That is a provocative claim. Can you explain to me what the poet believes about poetry?" I smiled in spite of myself, thinking of the first edition sitting on my shelf at home, filled with this poet's thoughts on poetry.

"He believes it flows from memory. Poets write poetry to capture the pleasures of the past; however, the poet can never fully capture the pleasure of experiencing an event again; what precipitates from his writing is a new form of pleasure." I wrote as she spoke, transcribing onto paper the thoughts she was able to verbally articulate.

"And what about this poem embodies that ideology of poetry?" I continued.

"Whew," she breathed and paused, "well, this poem is about a poet writing about an experience of nature from his past while re-experiencing the same natural scene in the present. The old experience of nature has faded-- the poem says it is 'dim and faint' and reflects a 'coarser pleasure.' Returning to the natural scene, the poet sees it with new eyes and is able to experience a new kind of pleasure."

"And what is the difference between these two kinds of pleasure?" I pushed.

"Well . . . the older kind of pleasure is more physical and the newer kind of pleasure is more thoughtful; it engages the mind instead of the body."

"Alright. Then if this is a metaphor for poetry, what represents poetry in the poem?"

"Well poetry is a process taking the poet from the coarser pleasure to this new pleasure, which the poem connects with creativity."

Now we were cooking. I asked her to tell me the purpose of each of the paragraphs in her paper and I wrote down what she said, creating an outline for her to see. As we reached the end, I handed her a green highlighter. "Now in light of our outline, do me a favor and pick the one sentence you wrote that strikes you as your thesis sentence." I had no idea which sentence she would pick.

She highlighted a sentence near the end of her paper and explained that it reflected the argument she felt her paper ultimately reached about the pleasure of creating poetry: "The poet says such pleasure compensates for the loss of pleasure that comes with the faded pleasure of memory which inspires poetry." Her brow crinkled up as she explained her choice. "This sentence doesn't match the initial problem I found with this poem!"

She was right. Her paper was supposed to address a literary problem within the text and use the text to suggest a solution to the problem. "What was the problem you found in the text?" I asked.

"That memory is incomplete. It fades and can never be fully re-experienced."

It was time for my brow to crinkle. I wondered how to explain to this young little scholar that the incompleteness of memory is not a literary problem. It is a part of life, a part of our beautiful and messy lives. Ah ha.

"I think the incompleteness of memory is only a part of a larger issue that you address in your paper."

"Really?"

"What I hear you saying is that your paper is about the writer's problem of ambivalence," my identity as a writer flushed to the surface as I spoke. "You have identified that this poet believes there is pleasure that rests in the past. As the poet reflects on that pleasure, he remembers sweet and beautiful times and must feel loss for what was and is not. His memory is an incomplete depiction of the pleasure he knew."

"Yes."

"So why does the poet even bother remembering, and why does he share his memory with others?" I pondered.

"My paper is not really about sharing . . .?"

"No, no, you misunderstand me. Why must the poet write?"

"He writes to create new pleasure."

"Yes! And does he create that pleasure just for himself?"

"I guess he creates it for his readers also."

"Yes, he does. But he confesses that their pleasure as well as his pleasure can never be the same as the pleasure from his memory, can it?"

"No."

"That is the poet's problem of ambivalence: He has the ability to create life and beauty and joy. But in order to to do so, he must remember what he has lost, and he must feel that loss; only then can he make something new." My heart beat quicker and quicker; it was the secret that had been hidden in all of her words and now it was sitting before us.

"I am not sure I understand . . ."

I took a blank piece of paper and began to write MEMORY: Loss, "Faint and Dim", Incomplete, Coarser Pleasure

On the far side of the page I wrote POETRY: Creation, Critical Thinking and Engagement, "seeing the truth of things"

Then I held up the paper and drew an arrow from MEMORY to POETRY "How does the poet cross from memory to poetry?" I asked.

"Oh I see," she said as I wrote WRITING over the arrow.

I drove the point home, "And as the poet writes, he has to feel everything." I drew a giant circle surrounding WRITING and cutting into both MEMORY and POETRY on either side. Then I wrote AMBIVALENCE around the circle. "He has to feel loss and life. Then, according to this poem, he can pen poetry."

"So my paper is about ambivalence."

"Yes."

We finished up the session by discussing how the poet uses his poem to demonstrate an art form rooted in recalling memory, writing poetry in light of those recollections, and thereby creating new beauty. I looked up from our session to meet the little scholar's eyes. "Thank you," she said, "I couldn't figure out how to incorporate everything I was thinking into my argument. But now I feel a lot better about what I am doing."

I left for the day aware of the many issues in that writer's paper we were unable to fix. And I left elated at the way she had connected her ideas through our session. I also left delightfully aware of my own heart and mindful of just why it is that I too must write.

And I am coming to believe that not only must I write, I must encourage others to write.

Art

2011-09-18T22:46:00.015-05:00

Back to painting. . . My life this week was messy. Perhaps it all started on Wednesday— the day of the sunflowers. Wednesday was my first pay day, a day I have been anticipating for a long time. On the way home from work, I sailed into Trader Joe’s and bought yummy things to eat for the week. I bought ingredients for bruschetta, mango chicken, margarita pizza, roasted rosemary potatoes, spinach salads, fresh salsa and chips, honey seared chicken and rice, half and half and earl gray tea: It was all a great feast. And on my way to the checkout, I saw a bouquet of sunflowers. I love sunflowers. They made it into my basket too. Coming home… life felt good. I finally belonged here, I was settling in and getting excited about the small group Bible study I would be attending Friday where I would make great friends. And on Saturday I was finally going to go into town on the train and be adventurous. It was all going to be perfect.

Friday came and I had a hard day at work. I worked all day on excel spreadsheets interpreting data for a leadership team meeting in the afternoon. The entire time I was warring with a feeling that I was investing my time in something I wasn’t passionate about and that didn’t matter. But part of work is doing your job well, whatever it is, and I wanted to honor that. Unfortunately, the graphs didn’t end up fully accounting for everything that everyone wanted information on. While no one chewed me out or conveyed that I had failed, I still felt as if I had somehow offered less than the best: “I spend hours doing menial labor and couldn’t even get it right!!!” I left for small group that night desperately hoping it would be everything that I was longing for.

And . . . it wasn’t. There were some kind people who may become great friends, there were some odd people who did not seem to be very grounded in their faith, and there was a sarcastic and abrasive small group leader who shut me down faster than a power outage. Every time I looked at this leader and endured the edge of her humor and the push of her questions I found myself adopting a “smile of understanding and interest” that Bethany or Libby would have called out as fake.

By the end of the day, I felt a lot like the figure to the far left in this painting here, hiding in my surroundings and my tasks, unsure how to be fully present and unsure where to meet God in the middle of deep and palpable disappointment. Incidentally, that figure in the shadows is Martha and Jesus is sitting at the table, reaching out to her. Rembrandt drew Martha on wet paper so she would bleed all over the page, lacking a center and a source.

Bad sleep brought me to a sluggish Saturday which was ominous and threatened rain. Perhaps exploring downtown Philly under such circumstances would not bode well. Realizing I had best choose an indoor adventure, I decided I could go to the Philadelphia Museum of Art. I have been wanting to explore the museum, but looking at the map, I felt nervous. There were roundabouts and one ways, the issue of parking and the question of time.

I hated myself for feeling nervous; I wanted to be daring and I wanted to boldly march out and meet life. I decided to chance it and jumped into my car as large raindrops began to splash upon the world. I got about 100 feet away from my apartment when I thought through the lack of time I would have at the museum. A huge exhibition on Rembrandt's Faces of Jesus was on display and I wouldn't even get to walk through the whole exhibit before the museum closed. I had wasted the day worrying and now it was too late to live it, I thought. Tears leaked out of my eyes and I sat waiting for the traffic light to turn green, unsure what would happen when it did. I stayed in this place of doubt and disappointment for roughly 30 seconds before stating to myself, "This is rubbish." I could go to the museum tomorrow and spend all afternoon there and I could bring a map. And today I could journey up to the little shops outside of town I have been wanting to see.

It was a moment when I remembered that the person who most frequently keeps me from dancing is me. I spent that rainy afternoon meandering through favorite shops and stores, taking time to open up again to hope and desire. By the time I was heading home for dinner, I was holding a beautiful bed skirt from Anthropologie, purchased thanks to the final bits of a giftcard from B and D. The bed skirt matches a comforter that I love from this store but that I had scornfully told my mother I could never ever afford when she asked if I wanted it. This bed skirt was sitting in a bin full of lamps and pillow cases. It was the only one and it fits my bed. It flounces like the skirt of a ballerina.

"Alright God," says Martha, "I will come to the table." I will taste and see that you are good. I will remember the better thing: an identity rooted in you-- not in work, not in friends, not in myself, but in your lavish love for me. I will stop judging myself and stop limiting you. I will dance and paint my way through my messy life, seeking your face and striving to bring you glory.

On Sunday I worshipped my savior and then went to meet him face to face at the Rembrandt exhibition. It was striking to me that Rembrandt preferred to paint moments of revelation with Jesus, moments when his disciples saw his face and came to know him more deeply: the Supper at Emmaus, confronting the doubt of Thomas, the calling out of Martha. And the reason that all of these different portraits of Jesus were gathered in a single space? Well, together they did something that had never been done before: they reflected the heart of a painter who portrayed Jesus the man, not just Jesus the God.

It was interesting to experience one man's relationship with Christ so intimately through canvas. I left that exhibit thoughtful and found myself crossing the atrium . . . to the impressionists. There I saw all of the artwork that defines this post . . . and much more. It was a great day; and really, it was a great week. I am more alive to beauty and filled with hope for what Jesus is doing thanks to the lovely and heavy moments that comprised my week.

Sometimes, you don't know the story your looking at until someone tells you . . .

Would you have guessed this to be Monet's Japanese Footbridge? Me either. To asking Jesus to tell us our stories then... and to joining him at the table.

painting words...

2011-09-18T22:44:00.003-05:00

I want to order my words. I wish to string them together perfectly so the life that is currently bursting from my heart can be shared. But honestly, my words feeling like paint— spackled, sprinkled, smudged, smeared, swirled, and swiped all over. They are dripping from me and are about to get all over you; we have a mess on our hands.

I need a canvas it seems— an impressionist’s canvas.

I love impressionism; I love that if you look closely at an impressionist’s artwork, you can see the paint runs with raw and unedited thought and feeling; it squishes up against itself deliciously as colors collide and spill off the painting, literally pouring into your space. I love the impressionist’s messiness; I hunger for it. But just as I love to stand with my nose up close to the canvas and learn how to look at memory and feeling and identity through paint; I love to run backward from it all until I am far away and can see how the raw and untamed emotions all begin to mean something— they flow into truth and reality. I love that impressionism requires both intimate interaction and expansive exploration.

I have a post of impressions coming for this past week, but it has grown long. I think I will leave it to dry for now and come back to it with another coat of paint tomorrow; hopefully then it will be ready to publish. It was a hard week and a brilliant day. My God is kind and mysterious; and He loves to bring me into contact with the glorious mess of my own life; where I need his graceful and creative order most.

Pondering 4: No and Yes All At Once

2011-09-11T22:06:00.003-05:00

It is odd to move to another place... I think when that happens, we have to wonder, "Does everything change? Can I be who I have been if I am not where I was?" And the answer is no and yes all at once.

B and I were talking on the phone tonight and I found myself agreeing with her comment, "It is different to live life in the day to day with certain people... and I miss that."

I miss it too; I think that is one of the ways that I most acutely feel that I don't get to be all of who I am in the middle of where I am at. You see, I am not surrounded by the same people who provoke and invite my heart out in such fascinating ways. Those parts of me, while alive and well, are not stirred with quite as much frequency here; they don't echo and resound through the conversations that compose my days because you, dear friends are not here to assist in the composition. I feel that loss; it leads me to anticipate the conversations where those parts of me ring true again with your companionship.

Stil, this past weekend, while feeling my aloneness; I wanted to remember who I am. I wanted to find that girl who is constant in the middle of changing places and seasons. So I packed up my bag with treasured books and struck out to find a rather fine, independent, and fairly funky coffeeshop. And I did. It was called Black Salt (odd name, with not nearly as pleasant a ring as Republic, a favorite Memphis coffee haunt. Ah well). Still, I ordered a drink and an overpriced bagel and settled into a book, people watching in between chapters. I found myself drawn to a particular conversation between two girlfriends; one of whom was Irish. I decided that I am going to have an Irish friend one day.

After coffee I ventured a direction in my car that I believed would eventually lead me towards the school that I work at; but I wasn't entirely sure. I was trusting my gut. My drive led me thorugh winding neighborhoods and past old homes with spiraling turrets where little princesses live and high stone walls that hide secret gardens. I gazed at the houses, pondering their stories and sipping in their scenery with delight. I decided that I am going to live in a house like one of these one day.

My gut, it turns out, was right and I soon found my way to my school. As I parked and got out to walk along the grounds, I took off my shoes. Students were picnicking and studying and playing frisbee all along the Madrgill Walk that leads from the local train station to the school buildings-- they were all relishing the day and bathing in the shade of the large maple trees. I walked past, smiling and crinkling my toes in the grass to ensure that I didn't miss the feeling of a single blade between my toes as I sauntered across the way. And then I spotted a rather fine tree with excellent branches and a a giant wooden swing, hung low to the ground from two well worn pieces of rope-- another smile. I tossed my shoes and sunglasses down in a crevice within the trunk of the rather fine tree and proceeded to swing. I pushed off the ground, going higher and higher as the train whistled past and the breeze shook the branches above.

I got so high that with each swing forward I would throw my head back and watch the ground fall towards me and the tree sail away; then I'd snap my eyes shut to make sure I wouldn't hit my head. Afterward, I sat on the swinging, rocking myself back and forth with one of my legs as the other provided a platform to write on. I journaled, sitting sideways on the very large swing. It was a beautiful day, and it savored of a particularly sweet memory I have of laying down in the middle of a secret English garden, near a house with winding turrets. On that day, I found myself staring up into the fine branches of a vibrant green tree, contrasted against a piercing blue sky, and promising myself that I would never forget this moment and I would never forget the girl I was turning out to be. I have decided that I am going to go back to England one day.

I miss you, friends. I miss living life face to face together. And God has been kind to my soul for this coming year, allowing me to live life in a place that asks me to be and to remember. Without you, I cannot be all of who I am. And yet with Him, I am more myself here today than ever before. It is no and yes all at once.

Pondering 3: Will you dream what you can't see?

2011-08-27T18:00:00.006-05:00

I have this dream that one day I will be presenting at a national literary conference. I dream the argument I am posing will have stemmed from a provocative question that perfectly combines the personal ponderings of my soul with the historically engaged and literarily driven assertions of my mind.

I have not yet found this question. Part of the peril and glory of my story is that I may never find this question; I am on the edge of a far-flung quest for it and I feel ambivalent in that knowledge. The places in my story that tell me such a question exists leave me poignantly aware of my inadequacies and need; I sit with God in the middle of a journey that is terrifying in its uncertainty. It is unnerving for me to believe that certain memories I hold and certain passions I carry all point towards an intellectual and yet deeply human question that God designed my soul to ask and wrote my life to pursue. Even more unnerving than the memories and passions are the people- the relationships- God has woven into my life in order to lead me deeper into myself and deeper into a world of questions and out of a world of answers. Yes, there are those in my life who live out questions instead of answers; they live in the beauty of need instead of the finality of rightness. And the courage of those people's questions reverberates into the lives of those who surround them, people like me.

Some of those who have influenced my life do not believe what I believe. Yet their desire to compassionately and openly seek what is real points to the heart of God and leaves me honored and grateful to know them and hopeful that one day we might chase Truth together and know His face. This takes us back to where we began:my dream of that literary conference. At that conference, after I have presented, I dream that I stand on the stage feeling a tad foolish and almost naked in front of all the scholars listening. And then, a certain scholar who happens to be present at the conference and who happens to be sitting in the audience raises his hand to ask me a question. The question is penetrating and perceptive--full of genuine curiosity. Yet the question's aim is subtly central to my thesis and therefore insightfully asked but also easily answered. I look into the face of the question's source and can see that he is on my team and is throwing me a softball so I can wow the audience with the nuances of my claim, which he has already bought into. As he waits for my response, I see that smile play on his face that I came to deeply enjoy as his student and I smile wryly back to him, one of my favorite professors from college, answering his question for the crowd. Afterward, we run and grab coffee to catch up with one another, skipping some less than intriguing session on environmentalism in Shakespeare, which by that time will be old news.

I find myself laughing a little as I read this post through. It is all so risky and so unsure and I wonder if it will ever be real. Maybe that is why I emailed that professor yesterday. And I didn't email him as student. I emailed him as a friend. I asked about his summer and about the classes I know he is teaching, and then I went ahead and wrote about my new job, hoping he wants to know. There was tension for me in the crafting of the email. Because what if he doesn't write back? What if we had the type of relationship that doesn't grow when you are far apart? What if I really am a silly, idealistic schoolgirl who believes in the impossible and is too loyal to forget? And what if that is exactly why this professor has believed in me?

I pushed send on that email. And you know, that professor may be busy and he may not write back. And I wouldn't be me if I hadn't reached out to him. I wouldn't be dreaming if I didn't reach for uncertainty. To the asking of questions then.

A day in the life...

2011-08-23T11:21:00.004-05:00

Lunch Break and the question of the day is does the microwave have enough power to raise my soup above the temperature of tepid?! We are on the fourth attempt of zapping it now in hopes of raising it to a steamy and savory state; I figure anymore rounds and I might be risking cancer. The microwave dings . . . I take a sip . . . mmmm, yes this will serve. Not quite perfect, but hot enough.

I have decided that I am a lazy snob when it comes to work lunches. I want a tasty lunch with out a lot of prep time. This has resulted in me taking large containers from my fridge in the morning and basically preparing lunch at work. So today for example, I could tell you that I had a delightful butternut squash soup with crackers. But that story is not nearly as entertaining as telling you that I rushed from the apartment this morning having jammed a family size wheat thin box and a previously opened container of soup into my bag while carrying a glass bowl and my coffee to go because neither of those actually fit in said bag.

Let's add to this vision the fact that my outfit today had a kind of Tuscan Australian vibe going on. You doubt me? But wait! I can take a picture!

See?! And you doubted. Works been, well, work ;) I have been updating the website, which has been exciting. I am starting to feel like I have technological skills. It's not like I am writing in code or anything, but I am learning my way through the programing matrix the college uses for website work (I do not actually think that was a correct use of the word matrix, but I like the sound of it so it's staying. how's that for posterity?).

Perhaps the saddest moment of the morning came when I had finished alphabetizing and arranging all of the 60 Writing Associate's pictures on the WhosWho page of the website and looked in horror at the final row in my table-spread. The last row had only two people's faces in it and as we know 20 rows x 3 columns - 1 head = less than all sixty Writing Associates. "Well," I thought to myself, "maybe I left out an easy end of the alphabet name like "Zwinkler or Wattenpuff or Xlenfaxx" [insert forced laugh at my own joke]. With meager hope I turned to my master list and began to check off names. 2 rows from the start I found the culprit, a certain Mr. C. I realize it is not fair to hold a grudge against Mr. C. since I haven't rightfully met him yet; however' as he has now carved out an afternoon for me of manually shifting every name and picture over, over, down, over, over, down, over, over, down, etc., I feel slightly justified in a gentle dislike. Perhaps I will be well over it by the time I leave to go and shop for the freshmen orientation this week. That should be fun.

I guess I should finish my soup then and return to the website :)

Cheers!

In Greek, Please

2011-08-22T22:35:00.003-05:00

ποιεω ->poieo

I learned this word in high school greek and have always loved it. ποιεω means "to create." I use to remember its meaning for vocabulary tests by reminding myself that poets create. I have always assumed that ποιεω must indicate an act that surpasses the every day or mundane aspects of life.

A few weeks ago I commented to Mom, “I am starting to loose my ability to read Greek.”

“Well, then pick it up again," she replied, "maybe you should even journal in Greek.”

“Ha! There is no way I could journal in Greek; I was never that good.”

“Just every once in a while you could do it.”

The conversation sparked my interest and I have recently begun to reacquaint myself with a language long silent. This past week, I pulled out my Greek New Testament and began my own translation of 1 John. There were moments that felt laborious and others that were exciting as I read smoothly and quickly, writing down my interpretation to check against an official one later. As I was reading, I came across 1 John 1:6

"Ἐὰν (If) εἴπωμεν (we say) ὅτι (that) κοινωνίαν (fellowship) ἔχομεν (we have) μετ᾽ (with) αὐτοῦ (him), καὶ (and) ἐν (in) τῷ σκότει (the darkness) περιπατῶμεν (we walk), ψευδόμεθα (we are lying), καὶ (and) οὐ (not) ποιοῦμεν (we create) τὴν ἀλήθειαν (the truth)"

The verse read easily, these words came back to me like old friends; I knew all the greek and had also read the English verse many times: "If we say that we have fellowship with him, and we walk in darkness, we are lying --" but wait--ποιοῦμεν-- here the verse diverged from what I knew in English: it read "create" instead of "do." According to my translation, the verse should end "and we do not create the truth"

What a compelling and problematic paradox sat before me. What would it even mean if I could create truth? What would it mean if my life failed to create truth when I ran for the darkness and separated myself from true fellowship with the Father? And why does no official biblical translation read ποιοῦμεν as 'we create'?

My back prickled with the delight of a question that would assuredly unsettle some long formed suppositions. I began to dig into this word that has long fascinated me, wondering what it could have to say about truth and my walk with God.

It turns out that yes, ποιεω can be translated "do", making 1 John 1:6 end with the phrasing we all know so well :"we lie and do not do the truth." A perfectly acceptable translation that side steps the question academics and theologians have now asked for centuries, dating back to Prodicus, as discussed in Plato's Charmides: What is the difference between πράσσω and ποιέω? In English, what is the difference between do and do? Strange to feel the skin of your own language, is it not? To be rubbing up against a place where English has dictated you think in black and white and Greek invites you to know color. Yes, it turns out that John is tapping into an ancient philosophical question in the first chapter of his letter, one he has already alluded to in his gospel (John 3:20,21).

Reading up on this question, I was stunned to see that in Scripture, we can πράσσω evil; but a tree ποιέω fruit, and we ποιέω goodness, love, and truth. Women πο ιέω children. Explained another way, πράσσειν εἰρήνην is to strive for peace, ποιεῖν εἰρήνην is to make peace exist. The research referenced above and sited for the examples I gave just now leaves me understanding that ποιέω brings about a product, a lasting permanent object that someone has poured life into.

So to answer my original query and quandary, ποιεω, has a great deal to do with the nature of truth and my walk with God. Because in 1 John 1: 6 it means that together, we as sojourners in Christ who walk in light, can deeply know and experience and embody and bring to be lasting, evident, sustaining truth. And, to take a philosophical liberty, apart from God and in darkness πράσσω: I strive and cannot know nor create truth.

It seems then that only one assumption has survived this little venture of research: ποιεω must indeed indicate an act that surpasses the every day or mundane aspects of life. It is extraordinary and life giving, and accomplished in vulnerable and safe community: in a fellowship of light. Curious and Glorious.

2011-08-22T22:27:00.003-05:00

I had hopes of a post this evening. Work left me tired and I ended up choosing less exerting activities: some easy reading and a movie. Not bad choices I suppose, but I am aware that even living on my own and not juggling college courses, I will still struggle to engage my own heart more deeply and to share through writing. I want to be kind to myself, but kindness does not always mean permission to check out. Caring for all of myself is a big task; I think tomorrow it will include some writing. Till then...

the drudgery and marvels of copy machines.

2011-08-19T16:35:00.003-05:00

Around 3:33 on August 17th I was questioning the current trajectory of my life and the overall worth of the prestigious document sitting at my home with the word "Diploma" portentously scrolled across it. You see at 3:33, I had been making photocopies for about 2 hours straight and things felt a tad grim.

We all pay work dues. We all have moments where working means doing what your told, even though it is uninteresting and uninspiring. I am coming to believe that those are tense moments, in part because we have to come face to face with ourselves in the most mundane of circumstances and ask ourselves of what we are truly made. Around 3:33 on August 17th, I was wondering how to answer that question with dignity and grace while continuing to copy the information in the folders of 100 incoming freshmen at my institution.

The answer came, as it often does, with my curiosity and my desire to know those around me more deeply. I continued my copying, but I also began to read the application essays these students had written to gain admittance into the college. With each essay, I found my heart sliding down my sleeve. I read of the orphan hoping to attend his Dad's alma mater, the younger sister seeking to find herself apart from the shadow of her brother, who hails from Harvard. There was the student questioning his own sexuality and looking for a place of safety and the student who had risen above his early diagnosis of dyslexia. I met a student who had written her entire essay as an elaborate function of calculus, explaining the equation's variables as the people and events which have shaped her life and leaving the reader with a derivative of herself. Each of them drew me in. I found myself smiling with a leg playfully popped up in the air as I leaned over the copier and swayed, allowing my work to introduce me to an extraordinary cast of writers and thinkers and dreamers.

It is strange to think I have never seen their faces and won't be able to distinguish their names if I should work with one of these students this coming year. By 4:32 on August 18th I had been introduced to nearly 400 new students and could no longer extricate one student's identity from another's. And so instead, I will look into each student's eyes this year, aware that some part of me has connected with some part of them, even though neither of us will know quite what that part is. What a curious gift to hold as a employee who is asked to walk the precarious line between faculty and friend.

Now that I am settled in my own identity at the college, complete with an ID and email address, I am looking towards next week when I will begin to meet the students face to face. Then the real work shall begin...

2011-08-15T17:48:00.003-05:00

Day One of work complete. It was a day of laying the groundwork for the next year: getting an ID; parking tag; and college email address, reading the manual for my position. Good stuff but fairly unexciting; I don’t think I will know how I really feel about my job until I am in the middle of it and engaging with students more regularly.

That leaves me to talk about life outside of work. Let’s go with best moments of the day.

1. Running across campus after work with my shoes off and my pants soaked because I remembered to bring my umbrella and then forgot it in the car. Scattered showers. Ha, ha, ha.
2. Driving in circles because I would remember that my turn was coming up but I would get over excited and turn early (I think that happened three times today).
3. Buying cracked pepper without a grinder attached (yus!)
4. Randomly deciding to get a library card. It felt like a treasure hunt. I was driving home from the post office and noticed a blue sign with a reading stick figure on it. I followed it to the next one and the next one and then to the library. The tricky part was then finding my way back from the signs.
5. Sitting on my porch, sipping wine.
6. Making a Mango Chutney Salmon (that’s right! You’re jealous just a little bit. Unless you are reading this Steven, because you hate fish). I had never made salmon for myself; I overcooked it just a little. Next time I’ll get it.
7. Lighting the candles and writing this at my couch.

That last one made me pause. I think this will be a year of being curious about the importance of lighting candles for one's self. for myself.

Pondering 2: Hold me as I Dream

2011-08-13T22:03:00.007-05:00

I think there is a difference between caring for yourself and taking care of yourself. Do a little free association with each of those phrases.

Caring for yourself= rest, comfort, chocolate, freedom, no worry, no guilt, bubble baths, good friends, wine, tasty food.

Taking care of yourself= being on guard, managing yourself and your life, standing firm, watching your back, surviving, making it and succeeding.

Somewhere in my life I learned to take care of myself. I have a strong inclination to nurse my own wounds . This trait has allowed me to develop a certain kind of strength as a woman: I am sure of myself, driven, able to cope and role with punches.

There is, however, a problematic compliment to my strength-- a pervasive and resilient propensity to dream. The ambivalence of my life is that dreaming does not allow me to take care of myself.

Dreams are elusive and tenuous. They are risky and foolish; they are shamelessly extravagant. Dreams are not goals we can achieve; they are desires that must be granted. They are good gifts sent from the heart of our Father.

So if I am to dream, I have to let everything hang out in the open, I have to know and share my needs, and I have to shamelessly long for more. And that is challenging for me.

This week I moved to a new city to begin my first job. In anticipating this move, I had done everything I could think of to take care of myself. I saved up some money, found an apartment that felt safe and clean (it was barely in my budget), applied for a credit card to assist with the first couple of weeks before I get paid, and I even found a way to buy a car thanks to the generosity of my parents.

In the midst of organizing and accounting for everything; I began to rationalize my way out of the less-than-necessaries I wanted: a dvd player and TV, a desk, a cool chair to accompany the couch I had bought, a giant poster of paris I had seen for over my couch, frames for the art I had been given, decorative pillows, candles, extra cooking utensils, patio furniture . . . My parents had agreed to help with the important things I couldn't afford and I was already splurging on some other items that were "unnecessary"- like a bookcase and a red couch and some dining room chairs that were not $15 at IKEA. Dreams of more not only felt absurd but ungrateful, and I was not going to behave in such an irresponsible manner as to bother those around me with the hope of a space that actually embodied everything I desired. I was afraid that allowing others to hold all of the longings of my heart would be too much and it felt inappropriate to be disappointed with less.

So my parents, Allison, and I left home for the move. About 8 hours into a 12 hour drive Mom and Dad explained their plan to pay for everything we purchased that week apart from my downpayment for rent. Food, cleaning supplies, and furniture could be covered by them. Their words came as a relief to me and I smiled, realizing that I could make my small, little space work as my parents provided some extra support. Now I certainly didn't need all of my wishes. In fact, I wouldn't even talk about them and I would explain to my parents how I had decided I didn't need any of them.

But it was too late. My parents had heard the hopes. I had let my guard down and my longings had leaked out of me on their own. I was in the midst 3 people who loved me and, even worse, knew me so well that they wouldn't allow me to continue taking care of myself.

As the coming days unfolded, I found myself shocked and on the verge of shutdown over the ways I was cared for. Surprise purchases were made under my nose and things I looked at were placed in the cart before I could object. What's more, we walked through stores and Mom would stop me and pick up shelves for my walls and say, "You know we could use one of these to display that cool Florence painting you still haven't framed. Let's get two and one of those giant clocks I heard you talking about last week for the wall above your TV." In the middle of all her words I didn't know what to say: "Two shelves is too many." or "I never thought we would actually get the clock!" or "Wait, I don't have a TV!" or "Hey, what's it to you if I still haven't framed the one gift I bought for myself in Europe!!!" At some point in the experience I was confident that this was all somehow my fault and I was too much.

Then I stopped and looked around and realized what was really happening. My parents and Allison were working to fulfill my dreams; they were directly echoing the heart of God as they took the absurd and extravagant and said "of course" and "why not" and "perfect" and "one more." And it was good. It was perhaps even heavenly. They were setting the stage so that I can spend this next year caring for myself and they were reminding me how God works: waiting for us to cry out and offering us more than we can ask or imagine. The weekend was an invitation for me to dream bigger and be needier and shamelessly hope and desire.

I am in utter awe and have only deep gratitude for the places where I was loved this week. I also know and trust God more deeply, having seen Him work through those who know and love me best on this earth.

Pondering 1: Dream Painting

2011-07-22T12:15:00.015-05:00

"How many people get the chance to paint the colors of their dreams?" Azar Nafisi asks. What a beautiful and longing question. I certainly hope that I take the time in my life to mix and paint the colors of my dreams.

A few minutes ago, I pulled our yet to be planted hydrangeas out from under the veranda so they could greet the pregnant gray sky. There is after all something quite welcoming about a rainy gray; it brings out a deep and thirsty green in the trees; it invites the pink and purple petals of flowers to unfurl and reach out in expectation. I am certain the palette of my dreams includes this particular shade of gray.

I love rain . . . I always have. When I was a little girl, my sister and I would visit my grandmother's house quite often. We lived in the desert and so rain was something fairly difficult to come by; however, my memories of MyPatty's home clearly include rain, and those memories are all embellished with scones and devonshire cream, old hats, lacy dresses, and long white leather gloves. You see, MyPatty, Allison, and I had tea parties during our visits. And a tea party, or at least any proper tea party, involves dressing up like queens and watching movies; movies which take place, more often than not, in the rainy English countryside. Growing up, I gained the tools needed to create an English garden in the driest of places. All I needed was a sister, and grandmother, tea, and very large hat. Together, they evoked a magical world that smelled like thunder and rolled with hills of English green. This was the rainy world of my childhood dreams.

In my dreams, Beatrix Potter hurries out of a storm into her quaint cottage and chooses to write the story of Peter Rabbit, Marianne Dashwood twists her ankle while frolicking in spring showers and is then rescued by the wretchedly handsome Willoughby, Jane Bennett catches cold from the large drops trickling down on and over her riding bonnet and is then cared for by chivalrous Mr. Bingley (who, would you believe, makes 5000 pounds a year!), and Eliza Dolittle tries to sell her bundles of flowers before being swept off by the elocutionist Henry Higgins. It was a dreary, vibrant, beautiful sort of wonderland.

When my grandparents moved to Colorado, the tradition of rainy teas continued, up till I turned 18; each afternoon a mountain thunderstorm would roll in and we would brew a pot and watch the next installment of Pride and Prejudice. MyPatty always believed in a very British kind of tea, complete with cream (having run into a myriad of southerners who find cream an entirely unnecessary dilution of any form of tea, I am very grateful to have grown up in a proper tea tradition).

Recalling all of the innocence, imagination, and pure joy that rainy gray bestowed upon my childhood, I see how it was a color I deeply connected with and savored when I traveled to England for myself. There is something about that thunderstruck shade which invites contemplation. As I watched it smear across the sky during my British afternoons, I would write and read and listen for the raindrops from my childhood which now beat for real, splashing onto my window sill. It was like coming home to a place I had only heard of and yet was made for. Strange how our dreams echo the truest parts of ourselves, is it not?

Dreams and Dreamers, Boxes and Blowtorches

2011-07-06T23:45:00.004-05:00

For a child who loathes conflict; I wage a fairly fantastic war within myself. For many years, I have been unable to find words to paint this war; I now find myself seeking out those words. To name the truth-- the whole truth-- of the the threads in my life that have stirred up such unrest, I must reconcile my desire to dream with my need to defend myself; perhaps this reconciliation is impossible. But I'd like to try. I am inviting you to travel with me through a blogging series, and it may well mandate a new blog of its own; we shall see.

I attended a Red Tent Dinner this past week . The women who attended the dinner all came with an answer to the question, "Who taught you to dream?"

I came to dinner fairly certain of what I would share. Yet as we all sat around the table and others began to talk, my understanding of dreaming began to deepen. The stories of others showed me that we all must dream and that I could not separate my identity and my reality from the dreams which have permeated my home. A heritage of dreaming has had untold influences on my story; it has woven a thread through the context of my life in hundreds of ways. So as I began to share my story of dreaming at dinner, it seemed appropriate to acknowledge a point last summer when I had to face the fear that life in my home could continue without dreams.

Recognizing my family would be leaving San Antonio, I felt very ambivalent last summer. Dreaming of something better was beyond me at that time; though I wasn't sure how much worse it could get: Dad not having a job and us selling our home was all gross. I attempted to share my doubts and fears with a couple of close, trusted friends. One of them analyzed my situation and remarked that perhaps my Dad's season of dreaming had ended and he was now navigating his way through a midlife crisis that would resolve itself as my Dad took up a practical job and began to provide for the family in a way that was no longer driven by extravagant dreams.

Those words. Spoken to be helpful and to rectify my predicament. They sliced my heart open. Everything I knew in my life, all of the best and most beautiful experiences I could point to in my childhood were bleeding out everywhere. The air was heavy and still as I attempted to speak evenly. I could not keep back tears, "My family is going through a difficult time, and my Dad is wondering how to make everything work, and . . . he will NEVER stop dreaming."

That conversation represented the moment when I began to realize my world does not work if it holds no people whose dreams to invite me to greater faith in the character and story of God.

That is the essence of what I ended up sharing the night of the Red Tent Dinner. I took the ladies at the table back to an early school morning in Portland, OR when I wandered into my parents' bed in my flower pajamas. I was groggy and am quite certain that my hair, somewhere between supernova and sunshine blonde at this point in my life, pointed every which way. Portland was a lonely year of my childhood so as I lay in bed between my parents, I felt confused when my dad asked, "What is the best thing that could happen today?"

"Um. . . I don't know," I probably smiled sheepishly, feeling a little foolish about this game we were playing.

"Well if you could see any friend today, who would it be?" Dad offered.

The question almost felt mean to a little girl who had moved from San Antonio, where she had several dear friends, to Portland where she had no close friends. But I rallied my spirits, "There is this girl, Maddie, I guess we could ask her to come over."

"No, Katy! Who is your best friend? Who would it would be GREAT to see today?"

"Well, that would be Katie Carroll in San Antonio," I responded, now unsure where the dreaming game was going.

"Excellent. Let's grab that suitcase in the hallway with all your clothes in it and jump on the plane to go see her."

And we did. It was a glorious moment in my life when I was asked to voice my deepest longing and then felt the extravagance of receiving that which I did not know I could hope for.

Upon finishing this story, I listened as a woman at the dinner responded to me by celebrating the ways in which my dad invited me to peer out and over the box I had put myself in. Her words made me smile and have provoked me to think about that space in which I live in so often: 'the Box.'

I use the Box to hide in when I am sacred or wounded. I use it to stand on when I feel a need to a little extra height to even the odds of an argument. I scramble up the sides of the box and peer over its edges when I am dreaming. And sometimes, I live my dreams and leave the box altogether. The conflict in my life comes as I cling to the box with one hand and attempt to incinerate the box with the blow torch in my other hand. The stories i will write this coming weeks represent the heat that I am turning up on my blow torch ;) I am attempting to live more fully and freely as a dreamer.

"That's right, I got a BA in Partying" AND "Satirical Remarks on Teenage Partying: A Case Study"

2011-06-21T09:55:00.004-05:00

So the party, if I do say so myself, was a HUGE success :)

Everything looked awesome. We completely re-arranged the student coffee shop into the ultimate party space. One of the other RAs walked in after I had set everything up and he said out loud, "Oh yeah. This is good. Those balloons completely transform the space." That's right, I have learned well from my mother the art of party making.

So the party got under way like any high school party would: lots of standing around and no guys on the dance floor. We the RAs were walking the delicate line of trying to encourage fun without mandating it-- which of course would have killed the party dead. All of a sudden, a senior from Rhodes named John walked in. John works on campus during the summer and had been pretty bored and lonely for the the first part of June; he had been trying all day to figure out where this party was going to happen and I had taken a steady look at his 21 year old self and refused to tell him. As I saw him walk through the door, I shook my head at him and pulled out my less than pleased smile.

"So how is the party going?" he asked with a grin.

"Alright," I commented nonchalantly, "They are still warming up to the idea of dancing." We both looked to the floor and he chuckled.

"Let me teach them," he suggested. "I know ballroom, salsa, swing" An image of John salsa dancing with the nearest 16 year old crept into my mind. "Haha, I don't think they will dig that kind of dancing, but thanks." The music kept playing and every once in a while he would slide onto the dance floor and do something cool and all the kids would gather around and cheer. I was watching him closely. He made his way back over to me, still smiling, the other RAs clearly were enjoying how he excited the kids. "Look John, you need to be out of here in the next 20 minutes. That is when the program director shows up and I can't have you here."

"Oh no, no, no I wouldn't want you to get into trouble." As I looked him in the face I felt like I was staring at my brother in 7 years or my Dad minus 25. He was full of fun and mischief, a good guy but just playful enough to make me nervous in this context. I wanted to let him show the kids how to dance and I wasn't sure if I trusted him. Cue Cee Lo Green's "Forget You".

Everyone was singing-- students and RAs-- but no one was dancing. John looked at me as the chorus came on, "Let's show them some real dancing." He took hold of my hand and with one step we were on the dance floor-- a place I was not going to go for the night-- and the question was, "Do I dance?"

He took hold of my other hand in a way that let me know we were going to swing and I smiled, thinking of all the moments with my dad that had given me enough moves to easily keep up with John if he would lead well. So before I really knew what was happening but not before I had chosen to say yes, we were flying. He danced me around, across, and off the floor, all of the kids starring and whooping and then clamoring forward to learn. He paired them off and taught them swing, then he taught them Thriller, and then the cotton-eye joe . . . it kept going and I watched as he led them in fun without crossing any lines. I watched as every guy and every girl got onto the floor, whether they were rhythmically challenged or not, and I watched them all strut their stuff: laughter beaming from their eyes.

To be fair, John made a pretty risky move and had to explain himself to my boss when she arrived. And she, like me, was less than convinced of his noble intentions. Still after her serious exhortation to him, she watched him continue to make track suggestions to the DJ and continue to teach the students to dance and then leaned over to me, "he is a pretty good teacher, isn't he?"

At some point later in the night, he ended up near me again. "Thank you," I laughed, "for teaching them to dance." "You're welcome," he grinned. "I work for Admissions and so I know how to navigate my way with high schoolers-- showing them how to have fun without doing anything that could cost me my job." He headed out soon afterward, the kids were all dancing and his work was done; now his friends were ready to go do some dancing downtown. I shook my head again, "Oh dear." But I waved as he walked away.

Let's Dance

2011-06-16T15:29:00.003-05:00

I am aware that it is time for my blog to shift. I can't just write about life at school anymore and I can't just share the recollections and ponderings I have accrued from my classes.

That all being acknowledged, I do not yet know how my blog will shift; it lacks a theme for the moment.

This being conceded, let us move onto my unthematic thoughts. I am working a Writing Camp this summer; I am one of the RAs. Overall, it has been a sweet gig: very low stress and lots of free time. However, there have been those moments of effort that explain why I was hired.

Each RA is responsible for a major evening activity during the camp, and my activity is the Dance Party this Friday. I think the best word to describe my response to planning, facilitating, and monitoring this DJ-run party for 16 year olds from 9pm-1am is PANIC! The director of the program gave me a checklist and I could feel anxiety building within me. It is not the art of running a party that is disconcerting to me, I was mostly concerned with the reality of this party-- both my audience and the funds placed in my care to create the perfect party environment for them. How do I foster something fun, appropriate and affordable for a bunch of rich 16 year olds I don't know?! My pulse was elevated as I attempted to maintain a cool and breezy demeanor. "You will be fine, I'm sure," the director nonchalantly commented.

Ashley, a veteran RA, and I made our way to Party City today. I was hopeful that she would tell me what to buy since she had done this before. She didn't. She had some comments but mostly kept repeating that it should be what I wanted. I paced the store for a few minutes, taking in the sock hop themes and avatar masks and disco balls. The realization of how little I could purchase for $100 quickly dawned on me. But there was nothing for it; I took a deep breath and 15 minutes later had leas, glow-stick paraphernalia, 2 dozen balloons, tiki table cloths, tropical blow up animals, beach balls, and bubbles; all of which matched the substantial pile of tropical/beach party stuff sitting back at campus from last year's party. So I think I am throwing a tropical rave party tomorrow night. We'll hit the lights and set up the DJ, set out goldfish and the party pack of fun size candy bars, and then we'll pull out a couple of TWISTER mats for good measure. It can't fail right, right?!

Stay tuned for the next post. It will either be "That's right, I got a BA in Partying" or "Satirical Remarks on Teenage Partying: A Case Study"

Trying to find the Words...

2011-05-22T12:10:00.008-05:00

There had been rumors of rain for the morning. However, as I rolled out of bed, the clouds seemed empty: gray but not ominous. The clear weather meant graduation would definitely be held in the garden. The breeze blew and the air felt cool; almost as if outside had agreed to join me in being contemplative. I had waited for this day for a long time, and I had anticipated the long walk to the garden and dancing across its stone stage, diploma in hand. That garden had witnessed many of my phone conversations and journal entries from the past 4 years; it had seen many significant memories in my life and would now witness one more. Tiffany and I dressed with few words; there was music floating through the room and I sipped some coffee as I scrunched my hair and finished my makeup and picked out jewelry.

If I didn't stop to think about it, the day felt just like any other day at Rhodes.

Mom walked up the stairs as I was staring my hair down in the mirror, willing it not to frizz, while Tiffany was pulling on her robe. Mom's eyes were bright, but her smile soft, as if she already knew the ambivalence swirling inside of me. She told me my hair looked great, giving me permission to leave the mirror. I walked to my closet and pulled my robe off the hanger. It was decorated with honor chords and pins and as I slipped into it and adjusted all the chords, they brightly reflected parts of my college story: english, service, singing, and greek were all represented. My bright red high tops, a reminder to walk loudly and live my life to defend the oppressed, were already on my feet. The colors all clashed and yet as they twisted and swished back and forth, they harmoniously echoed places of beauty and growth in my life from these past 4 years. Zipping up the robe, I wasn't ready for what was happening. The moment felt too big, beyond words, and the symbolism left me overwhelmed. Tears started leaking out of my eyes and Mom held me tight. It all felt extraordinary and joyful and too fast; I kept breathing, looking for moments to grab onto as I launched into a day that would close such a vibrant chapter of my life.

With the relief of my tears, I turned to the mirror and placed the mortar board on my head-- the final touch. The hat secure, I turned back to Mom and smiled. Dad then came up to hug me and Tiffany and I grabbed a photo and scurried down the stairs to line up for the procession-- thanking God for the clear and yet cold and breezy morning that matched our bright and yet reflective demeanors.

I was lined up away from anyone I knew and found rest in the quietness of waiting. I was positioned outside at the bottom of the amphitheater: the heart of the campus. From my spot, I could see Tiffany above me and other friends sprinkled in the long and curving lines in which we were all arranged. Suddenly, the bells started tolling, over and over, sending their peels throughout the campus. With the tolls, I caught my breath and time stopped for me. The fullness of that moment wrapped itself around me and I was well aware of my delight and gratitude as we started to walk across campus, through Palmer Hall and across the Rhodes seal, down into the garden where we would graduate. Stepping upon the seal, which is reserved for only graduates and alumni to walk upon, I was greeted by the professors who had taught me for the past 4 years. All were dressed in their academic regalia and smiling as the bells continued to toll. I walked past them, laughing at the winks and nods and knowing glances from my favorite professors and I remembered the dozens of meaningful conversations I had shared with these brilliant men and women; they were all celebrating with me as the bells kept ringing. I continued down into the garden and found the two rows of family members sitting one row down from me. All were smiling broadly and snapping pictures. Friends, family, and faculty all together with me as we marked the graduation of the class of 2011.

After the procession and as the bells ceased, everything went rather quickly. Of course of all the graduates, I had the loudest cheering section :) My profs were all laughing on the stage as my family brought the house down. When it was all over there was champagne and hugs and well wishes from college friends and professors. The memories already seem blurry but I vividly remember my emotions and sense of the day-- it all happened magically and I loved each second. And for years to come, I will remember the bells and the long walk to the garden. It all speaks to a much deeper and incredible journey in my soul thanks to Rhodes.

2011-05-18T23:21:00.003-05:00

I need to write I know; I just don't quite have the words yet. They are coming . . . stay tuned.

Beauty in Chaos

2011-05-06T16:32:00.007-05:00

Last night, on a whim, Tiffany, McKenna, and I went down to the river. I have visited the Mississippi throughout my years at Rhodes and I love being down there, but I don't go often. I should have spent more sunsets there. As many of you may know, the river is steadily rising and may end up flooding Harbor Town on Mud Island, a series of lovely homes, parks, and restaurants near downtown Memphis. We had heard the stories of how bad the river was getting, but we figured we needed to see it for ourselves; it is hard to believe without seeing.
As we drove up to the river, I was in awe at the crashing waves surrounding the upper quarter of full grown trees. Normally, those trees were 35 feet away from the shore and now at least 15 feet of them were submerged. The current of the river was so fast, and the tangerine colored sun shot through the water, causing it to glitter and dance. It was stunning. I could acknowledge the coming havoc, and yet I could not escape the extravagant beauty of the swelling river; so present and alive and uncontrollable.

Shoes off, we sat and talked and marveled. Silent at moments and laughing at others, celebrating the beauty, watching the sun sink and the sky turn purple. It was a good time of reflection.

From there, Tiffany and I went out with our Senior Choir friends and Director for drinks. I loved staring down the table, celebrating all of the life we had lived together. There were choir stories and freshmen stories and Dr. Skoog, our director, told us all about trips to Europe. Over calamari and beer we reminisced over the past four years of life. By the end of it, Tiffany and I were chatting with a dear friend, Nicole, who used to be in Rhodes Christian Fellowship but ended up dropping out after our sophomore year. We sat and talked about where RCF is headed in the coming years, reflecting on the growing heart that group has for our campus, and the growing desire it has embraced for making God's name known. As we talked, Nicole shared her delight at where RCF was going and confessed the reasons she had stopped coming. Nicole then put words to some emotions she had held for two years and much came out. She talked about the judgement she had received for the non-Christian friends she keeps and the lifestyles those friends pursue, she talked about a girl we all knew freshman year who committed suicide, she confessed that her faith had been taken for a ride over the past four years, and through it all, I could see some uncertainty coming out, some fear that once again she would be pushed to the wayside and judged for the company she keeps, the company who sat at the table with us.

"You know," I mused, "I am very mindful that there is often a mindset among Christians that there are 'the Saved' and there are 'the Mission: those who need to be Saved.' And for a long time on our campus, you have either agreed with the convictions and political leanings of the majority of believers and thus shown yourself to be saved, or you have disagreed with them and shown that you need to be saved. Now, I believe there is truth and it is absolute. That being said, there are basic tenets of Christianity that must be embraced to walk with Christ, and outside those tenets, there is grace. And as we disagree on the details of faith, there is ultimately the question of God and how it is that we will choose to glorify Him."

Nicole breathed out, "Yes!" Our conversation continued, Tiffany offering Nicole loving words, and the three of us contemplating faith and what it looks like to love God well. I had a lot of respect for the points Nicole raised and a lot of curiosity over who was walking intentionally with Nicole through her faith. And at the end of our conversation, I still felt the desire to know more of her story, and yet I also felt an overwhelming gratefulness for what she had shared with Tiffany and me and for the way we stepped into the conversation together with boldness. It was curious to catch the eyes of others at the table who started listening as we spoke. Tiffany smiled as we got in the car to go and said she noticed Dr. Skoog staring at us as the three of us talked. He is saved and I think it surprised him to see college students engaging so meaningfully with the gospel.
Last night was full of unplanned beauty. It made me mindful that life moves fast, and we are to live out our faith as we as we are walking through it and not miss the moments floating by. That being said, some of those moments involve sitting and reflecting and embracing the beauty of the chaos that surrounds us, which our God is orchestrating into cosmos.

Too Full

2011-05-04T16:01:00.002-05:00

Does anybody know how to hold my heart? how to hold my heart?
Cause I don't want to let go, let go, let go too soon.
Does anybody know how to hold my heart? how to hold my heart?
Cause I don't want to let go, let go, let go of you.

Sara Barielles plays in the background and feels very appropriate as I seek to give today words. I finished college today.

I finished college today.

I finished college today.

It has been dawning on me the past week. Classes ended last Thursday and I have been writing my final papers, taking a final, giving a senior presentation. I finished well, just like I had hoped to. I wrote well and spoke well, I am in the process of bidding my undergraduate friends and my friends among the professors farewell. I am delighted and aching for the time we have shared, for the people I have known, for the parts of my mind and heart that have come alive within the stone walls and wooded parks of Rhodes.

And as I begin to even try and reflect on everything these past four years have meant, I am overwhelmed with gratitude. My God, you gave me everything that I had hoped for, you gave me everything I didn't know how to long for at 18 years old; in the past 4 years, the deep of my heart has awoken and I am learning how to live in the wake of that depth. I have lived the four most incredible, vibrant, fun-filled, meaningful, adventurous, life-changing, stretching, eye-opening, inspiring years of my life. And they are only four years in a much larger story, but today and for the next week, those years deserve celebration in their own right. My God is good.

Yesterday night, I sang for my friend's final examination. Yes, that sentence is written correctly :) Stephanie is a music major and wrote a piece of music for her theory final. It was a six part harmony of psalm 63, written in latin. Stephanie gave one verse to each singer and she designed the melodies specifically for each of the singers. She told us that she refused to dictate rhythms for the verses in order that we would each own our verse for ourselves; sing them to reflect ourselves and our relationships with God. We sang our verses at the same time, chanting together with different melodies, walking towards one another outside and then we concluded singing a verse together. She gave me the second and third verses:

My flesh longs for You In a dry and thirsty land Where there is no water. So I have looked for You in the sanctuary, To see Your power and Your glory.

So last night, I walked towards 5 dear friends as we sang together outside and as we sang to our God. And I let my soul thirst for God and desperately wonder what comes next as I leave such a lush and glorious season of my life. And then I kept singing, remembering that He offers rest, He offers sanctuary, and He reveals His power and glory in due time.

Beautiful Things

2011-04-14T14:23:00.004-05:00

So B and Lib posted their songs and I am in, ready to post mine. These days I am savoring the things that God makes; I am reflecting on the beauty that He shapes within us. Gungor has some lovely and simple words that have provoked my thoughts here.

Perhaps what I love most about our God is how He meets each of us in unique places, daily meeting B in need and meeting Lib in revelation and freedom, meeting me in the middle of new, beautiful things.

There is pain and ache in our stories; there is violence we have borne and there are place where evil has come for us. And God is here, God is now, powerfully present and inviting us to rest in Him and trust because he makes beautiful things, he makes beautiful things out of the dust.

You make me new, you are making me new.

2011-03-28T23:10:00.006-05:00

If I could convey the truth right now, what would it look like and feel like and taste like and sound like and smell like?

It might look like a rose overblown, the petals gently exploding.

It might feel like the sand on the shore of a beach after a thunderstorm, prickly and intimate, catching the foam of settling waves.

It might taste like a chocolate soufflé, burned just enough to carry that hidden and almost delightful taste that only fire can draw out.

It might sound like a train whistle near a platform in the country. Going? Coming?

It might smell like pipe tobacco, full of time and wise beyond understanding.

If I could convey the truth, you would witness my heart in the aftermath of a disappointing letter. And my heart would tell you what I don't quite know how to say. Sipping a cup of warm tea, my heart would tell you that I heard back from Oxford and Oxford said no. And with my heart so perfectly at ease in your home, sipping tea and sharing truth, it wouldn't feel like it needed to move on quite yet. Not yet, not today. There are dreams I am pondering and planning to air out soon, and for today it is enough to honor what is not and what may one day still be.

On the Irresponsibility of Cherry Blossoms

2011-02-27T16:19:00.006-06:00

Cherry Blossoms. When I think of new beginnings and when I remember God's faithfulness, I will always think of Cherry Blossoms. I remember driving up to campus four years ago and gazing with delight at the brilliant explosions of light, tipped in shades of pink and purple. Yes, the Cherry Blossoms were my first greeting at Rhodes and the week that they bloom, I savor the memory of when I first beheld them that week in early March. Cherry Blossoms are the first of the many trees to bloom here at school. They extravagantly appear while we still need sweaters and jackets and jeans; they are the heralds of rebirth in the midst of a world still sleeping. Cherry Blossoms bring beautiful hope to chilly mornings and frosty midnights.
I was privy to a conversation last night where a friend confessed that he was fairly certain God had called him to be responsible. It made me smile. Of course God calls us to have steady jobs and a stable home life, he mandates that we maintain our 2 children nuclear families and open college savings accounts for our kids, he wants us operating on 5 year plans and he wants us anticipating the next logical life step, he wants us to own a copy of the Purpose Driven Life. . . Doesn't he?

My friend agreed with me last night when I commented that God is not responsible. That's an uncomfortable statement, isn't it? But I look at the Savior who called his disciples away from their livelihood and I look at the God who sent a youth to kill a giant, I look at the Father who sacrificed his son for sinners, and I look at blossoms that bloom in the frigidness of February. And I don't see a responsible God; I see a prodigal God: a Lavish, Glorious, Beautiful, Faithful, Creative, Loving God. And I remember Cherry Blossoms and the incredible love I see in my story and I trust in my reckless and wild God, hoping in what's to come. And I am not saying that I am perfect at walking faithfully through the uncertainty, but I am saying that I love Cherry Blossoms and there's a reason for that.

What about you? Where are you refusing to open up, waiting for a time that's more appropriate before you risk being irresponsible?

Aurora

2011-02-27T00:40:00.003-06:00

"The world of books is still the world, I write,
And both worlds have God's providence, thank God,
To keep and hearten: with some struggle, indeed,
Among the breakers, some hard swimming through
The deeps-- I lost breath in my soul sometimes
And cried, 'God save me if there's any God,'
But, even so, God saved me; and being dashed
From error on to error, every turn
Still brought me nearer to the central truth"
-Elizabeth Barrett Browning in Aurora Leigh

I do believe that there are dead ends which we must fully explore in order to learn more of ourselves and more of the Word who was and is writing us, who saved us for abundant life. Abundant life-- God always saves us for something more.

And based on the emails of the day, it seems that abundant life will not equate to the University of Texas for me, and it seems that abundant life will not equate to backup plans.

So that leaves Oxford and the assurance that God is always drawing me nearer to the truth of who He is and to the life He is writing with me. Thus I'll continue to write, walking in faith in the moments when my soul loses its breath and greeting the dawn.

Dreams and Things

2011-02-10T20:26:00.007-06:00

My goodness! I freely confess that I am having a trying time writing this 2 page poetry explication on which I am working and I am writing this right now because it feels good to have my fingers rapidly moving across the keys of my computer; I am making more typos than I normally do (but you shall not see those). :)

Well, of what shall we speak for this little respite in my academic writing? (Ha, you can tell I have been writing academically, no dangling modifiers and no contractions are in this post yet). I have had a few blog posts in my head of late, I just have not had the time to write them down...

I have this list inside my head. It is a list of dreams, dreams that I am not going to necessarily be able to make happen on my own. At the start of this semester I thought that I was going to get to check something off the list: sing somewhere really important.

You see, in a glorious stroke of grace, God allowed my schedule for this final semester of college to remain open during the rehearsal time of the college choir. I tried out and got in (despite the exorbitant amount of musical knowledge I have forgotten). I found myself looking forward to singing under a conductor again; it has been a long time and it is something I love dearly. My favorite moment of choral singing is when you walk out on the stage, begin a piece together, and then your conductor motions for dynamics and diction and energy above and beyond anything you've ever done before in practicing the piece and you give it to him because you all trust him and he trusts all of you and for the space of that musical piece, you all exist for one another in the name of creating beauty (it is a pretty phenomenal feeling; I think it is unique to the choral world).

Anyways, the choir is going to sing in the National Cathedral and at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. I couldn't believe the odds and I was so excited . . . until it was over a thousand dollars. "Ah well," I thought to myself. I will sing with the choir and be one of the people who doesn't go on tour; it will still be worth it to learn the music and perform it for our concert at school.

And that is all true.

Last week, I got a call from the choir officers. There was a spot open on the trip and over a 50% price reduction; they wanted me to take it. And I did. So I am singing some place really important next week. I am singing prayers and hymns and spirituals. I am celebrating the places where God makes dreams happen just because we ask for them and because there is glory for Him in our joy.

Oh yes, and this is one of the things we are singing. It is without doubt the most challenging thing I have ever done but I am thinking it will sound pretty sweet with the echo of the cathedral.

Living in the Moments

2011-02-02T17:49:00.007-06:00

There are moments.

Moments when it's freezing cold and the air bites inside your throat and it still is a beautiful day.

Moments when you realize that sometimes language is incredibly violent and sometimes it is the most divine gift on this earth.

Moments when you wonder what it means to be "radically feminine."

Moments when you really want a cigarette, despite the absurd nature of that desire.

Moments when a bagel and cream cheese at 4:54 pm are truly the best pairing on the planet.

Moments when pajamas are totally appropriate.

Moments where you stare at the receipt for the graduation announcements you just purchased and think to yourself, "Whoa! This is it!"

It was a day of moments.

2011-01-28T00:36:00.003-06:00

"I'm dumb!"

"You're not dumb."

"Who freaks out about having the chance to do the thing she most wants to do in the whole world?"

"You are not dumb."

"Who is scared to go to the place where her heart feels most alive?"

"You are not dumb."

"Who hopes she will get rejected from the program she has applied to so that she won't have to say yes?"

Smiling, "You are not dumb."

"Nobody does that!"

"You know that if you go, you will probably not come back for a long, long time. You know that God is calling you to something huge and at 22, it is ok that you feel the weight of that call."

"Katy, this is like you thinking about saying no to Oxford."

"Tiffany," a gentle laugh escaped, drawing the attention of her enlivened eyes to the pensiveness of mine: "I ask questions too."

"But you know you want to go!"

"ah but so do you. that is why China scares you."

"yes."

yes.

Look a Like

2011-01-27T00:16:00.007-06:00

I have a couple of good posts to share; I just haven't had time to write anything yet. That will all come this weekend :) For tonight, I thought I would let you enjoy my feelings today as I finished getting ready: I blow-dried my hair straight, just to see what it would look like and as I flipped my hair up I stared in the mirror dumbfounded, "Oh My Gosh! I look like my mother."

Tiffany walked into the room and said, "Cute!! You remind me of someone..."

"My mom?"

"Yep, that's it!"

Totally dig my mom and her haircuts . . . not sure I am ready to look like her yet. Will probably stick to my spunky curls; they have character ;)

Shifts in my Paradigm

2011-01-22T11:36:00.002-06:00

"Have any of you ever read Beloved?" he asked, his accent thick. "I have taught it for years and I assigned it to this class because it is incredibly disturbing and provocative. It is about a mother, enslaved in America before the Civil War, who tries to escape slavery with her children. She fails. As the driving slave masters close in upon her with her children. She realizes that she would rather kill her children than subject them to slavery again . . ."

I inhaled sharply.

"She only succeeds in killing one child-- the Beloved. And the narrative is a retelling of that experience from multiple perspectives."

My eyes had glassed over a bit; what is it that this man was going to ask me to do for this class?

"You know, for the longest time I taught this book as a perpetrator. I taught it for the racism that I allowed to exist around me, I taught it for the violence I have committed or allowed. I taught it from a posture of guilt.

However, one day, an elderly woman in one of my classes challenged my perspective. She said to me, 'You must engage this book as the Beloved if you are ever to pull from it all that it offers.'

And she was right. I had to access anguishing moments of abuse in my story to fully connect with this text. As you read this book, I will ask you to remember for yourself the abuse that has been inflicted upon you. I will ask you to read and be curious about the ghosts that haunt your own stories and how those ghosts have shaped who you are."

I was silent. No one in any class has ever asked me to read like this. And the strange thing is, this professor wasn't seeking to exploit or expose our stories, he merely hoped for us to read stories while choosing to be alive to our own. He is a curious and compelling man. Later in that class he informed us, "I do not wish to be offensive. However, to provoke and dislodge the prejudices that will need to be explored in this class, I will occasionally say offensive things. I do not mean to wound any of you and hope that you will always approach me if something from class has concerned you. I have now warned you what you will be getting with me: I am a flaming homosexual, I'm as queer as a coot, and I will strive in this class to break through your heterosexual, white paradigm to invite you to strongly consider why you believe what you believe and to grow more aware of what the people around you believe."

"Oh my goodness!" I thought, "this is going to be quite a ride."

Speechless

2011-01-21T10:37:00.006-06:00

"Oh! It's snowing!" I exclaimed as I slid into my jacket, my lesson planning meeting with the professor I TA for having ended.

"It's beautiful" she breathed.

I smiled as I twirled down the stairs from her office and opened the great oak doors of Palmer Hall to embrace the snow that seemed to dance down from the heavens just for me. I took the long way back home, walking amongst the stone and trees of a strangely quiet campus, catching snow flakes with my eyelashes and tongue. It had been a long day, I was grateful for the peacefulness that walk held. When Tiffany and I left for choir, it was still snowing and flakes began to pile up on our heads. In choir, it kept on snowing through each of our musical pieces. One piece, Memorial, was particularly striking that afternoon. The piece concludes with a chorus of prayers to God being raised up in English, Hebrew, Arabic, and Latin. It is piercing.

These first few days in choir have felt like a great effort to remember to tell stories when you haven't told them in years and years: there is an art and progression to the thing that takes some time to recover. However, it was on this day, with the falling of the snow that I was starting to remember the storytelling of singing. Our director led us to the end of "Memorial." There is a key moment in the piece where the altos (of which I am one) bring the song to a climax with trumpets as we cry "kyrie eleison, kyrie eleison." The cry is in Latin and we are asking "Lord have mercy." I love the climb of that moment, I love the plea for mercy in the aftermath of pain and anger, I love the vulnerability. And I ached to sing it for its beauty and its meaning. Singing so often embodies how I want to engage with God.

After choir, Tiffany and I went to see the King's Speech. The movie was phenomenal and incredibly moving. Lionel Logan works with King George VI through a speech impediment and in the process, aids the king in confronting a great deal more. One of the techniques that Logan uses with the king is he asks him to sing his stories to get them out: the continuous melody and movement of a song often carries the words that the king struggles to express out of him. The scene when the king finally begins to sing his story still lingers in my mind as one of the defining moments of the movie.

Sometimes I feel as though I stammer with God. And I put up defenses and choose not to talk at all because I reject the premise that God could love me enough to long for the words that I don't really know how to get out. I am scared to access all of the fear and lies that contribute to my struggle to express my heart to my Father. So I speak trite prayers or I grow frustrated and silent as I attempt to pray real prayers. But there is still this longing to connect with Him and tell Him my heart. There is still the passion and anguish and hope that stirs under the surface of my faith. And singing reminds me that all of that exists within my soul, that I have words to cry out to God and I probably know what those words are.

I am grateful for singing and for all that it allows me to feel and offer to God. And at some point or another, I will have to risk speaking to Him and embrace grace in the moments when I fall all over my words or can't find the right ones to capture my thoughts. I need to trust in the unwavering love of the Father who sends beauty and redemption in snowflakes that fall from heaven because He loves me.

Hello Again, Home.

2011-01-07T23:33:00.003-06:00

Odd that Christmas Break is now almost over. It went fast this year, for multiple reasons. I am savoring these last few days at home. With moving and visitors, the house has been full of a joyful kind of bustle, but bustle nonetheless. There has been adjustment for everyone this holiday; we are each creating a place for ourselves in the new home in our various and different ways.

As the house begins to feel calm in the aftermath of Christmas, I feel as if I have settled into Michigan a little more. I could equate my feelings to that moment when you stop asking for your favorite coffee mug at a friend's house and you just grab it off the shelf because it fits you and it brings your friend joy to see you sip from it. I have spaces in this house that I wander to, I know where things belong, I have a room of my own.

In my wildest dreams I never could have anticipated the space I would be allowed to fill in this home. I can remember May and a resigned acknowledgement that I had left my room behind; who can afford a house with a bedroom saved for the daughter whose a grownup and is looking at jobs and graduate programs? Yet to the new house we came and there, there was a room: a room my parents told me was for me, a room that I fell in love with. And when Dad had hung every picture and I had placed the last book on my book shelf, when Mom had made my bed, and when I had curled up on my new window box, I sat in wonder at the extravagance of God and the room He saw fit to save for me in our home. His love was terrifyingly personal, evoking shocking realizations of the cries He had hear and the tearful questions from this summer He had now answered. I could hear His graciousness: "You were not forgotten in this move. You are not isolated. You play a role in what makes the Johnsons the Johnsons. I see you and I see that you belong here. This is home, Katy."

There is more to say and there a more nights to say it and for tonight, there is gratitude and a firm sense of where I belong. I think I can end with this song, which has and I believe, will always, stir longings, tears, memory, and hope for me. It speaks to and tears at much inside of me and it is perfect for honoring the One who is my home.

The Waves of 2010

2010-12-31T14:55:00.003-06:00

There was one thing I told myself I needed to do today. I needed to write. The day is rapidly disappearing and I still haven't written and now I am sitting here at the computer, wondering what it is that I really want to say. How do you sum up a year in a post? How do you honor the detail and beauty and sorrow of a year? How do you acknowledge the plans fulfilled and the surprises encountered?

365 days ago, I wrote the words that I hoped would define 2010: Walk on Water. The words still make me smile and as I survey the past 12 months, I can see where God and I have walked on water together and where he has allowed friends and family to walk on water with me. Walking on Water has looked like faith where faith feels senseless: believing that the moving of my family across country was a move that included me and that there would be a space for to me fill in our new home, applying to Oxford even with its high cost, giving up Suma Cum Laude, facing death at Camp Redcloud, facing loss in San Antonio, facing doubt in Michigan, keeping my face and maintaining hope with friends, embracing the sweetness of endings in Tennessee. Weddings, wine, graduations, parties, and airplane rides; there are so many stories that I have not space to share.

As I sit, looking into the woods of our backyard, I am overwhelmingly aware that I never imagined this life for this year. And I feel huge ambivalence in the midst of that knowledge. I see God honoring dreams and exceeding them, pulling us . . . pulling me into a life deeper and more wild than I had anticipated. Not surprisingly, I really didn't understand what walking on water would look like and I find myself struck speechless at the waves we navigated this year.

And as I look to the New Year, today it is my tears that I can most readily connect with. They gather in my eyes both for the hopes that I am still hoping and for the dreams that have been filled. My tears well up in gratitude and in uncertainty. I ache and feel contentment, I laugh and am silent, I dance and desire solitude; everything all at once. What I can say with absolute certainty is that I wouldn't have lived it differently, I wouldn't have chosen less, and I am so thankful for the love my Father has shown me this year, for the way he has pursued my heart and welcomed me out on the waves. I must also say thank you to you, you who have ventured out with me and reminded me of what is true, you who have celebrated and cried with and held me
as I needed; it has been my joy to walk on water with you.

I am uncertain what my words for next year should be . . . I have several phrases rolling around in my head. Maybe that will be a post for tomorrow; there are still some final waves to enjoy for today.

Oh yes, I believe

2010-12-05T11:50:00.003-06:00

Last year I lost Christmas. It never fully felt like Christmas for me and I remember the painful awareness that I waited and waited for something to arrive that never came. When Christmas morning dawned, I was not, as has always been true, the first child out of bed with eyes full of wonder and heart full of light. I was last, woken up by someone else and slightly disoriented: "Wait. This isn't right. Surely it can't be Christmas." I was coming off a long and tiring year and didn't know what was going on in my life and where I was headed. It was hard and I found myself quietly worried that I had lost a part of Christmas forever, that I had grown up and could not return to Neverland.

I wrote in my journal this morning that I am beginning to realize the battle I am engaged in for this Christmas to remember what I believe. I asked God what would happen if I remembered that Gabriel came to announce Christ's birth to my world . . . because it's true, I don't live in Neverland anymore. The truth, substance, joy, love, and reckless hope of the nativity are deeper and more terrifying in the world I live in now: a world full of questions that often lead those around me to cynicism and doubt.

I am fighting for Christmas this year, fighting to live it and remember, fighting to hope that Christmas morning will dawn this year with beauty for me, fighting to ponder and cherish the timeless story in a timely way, fighting to name for myself how much hope is riding on this holy day for me and tentatively choosing to sit with my Father here and ask Him to speak the story of Christmas to me again.

Anticipation

2010-11-28T13:53:00.007-06:00

You know your life is too busy when you sit down to write and have nothing to say. I am recovering from a life too busy.

Why write today? Why take the Sunday before I get chucked back into papers to write when I could really use the extra hours to work? Because our lives are songs of anticipation and if I fail to take note of my surroundings, I will forget what it means to look forward with hope. I went to church today in Michigan and now I am writing in Tennessee; the turn around has been a little jarring. This morning, Rob Bell talked about Advent. He discussed what it meant, he considered the role that seasons play in our lives, he painted a picture of the rhythm our lives should consist of: a rhythm of rest and work and celebration and waiting. As he spoke, I already knew my rhythm was off. When was the last time I spent a week in God's word everyday or even every other day? When was the last time God and I REALLY talked and when was the last time that happened when I wasn't angry at what He was doing? When was the last time that I rested a full day and didn't feel guilty for the work I needed to be doing? And when will I name for myself the costs of a life lived without a willingness to slow down?

Heavy questions. Questions I don't have the answer to yet. But I know that there is a reason I blinked away tears multiple times this morning. Something inside me was fed and I forgot what that food tasted like. Worship was led by a band from Northern Ireland this morning: Rent Collective Experiment. They asked us to drop our guard prior to worshiping and I was mindful of the posture I often take when in a praise service: arms crossed, weight on one leg, leaning back, waiting to see if the people in front of me are legit or just another crew of smiling Wiggles cramming sunshine songs down my throat. I told myself "No!" today. With the band's invitation to worship defenseless, i dropped my arms and battled to keep them down for the duration of the service, struggling to truly be open. The band purposefully chose songs they have written to speak out to the cynicism of 20 and 30 year olds in Ireland who no longer see the difference between religion and Christ and who no longer care to walk vulnerably. Their words rang true as I thought about school and the church I attend and the last time my faith was a part of something bigger than my individual self, or that I collectively worshiped with people my age, or that I changed a part of the world with a team of believers.

And this is a post that I really don't want to write about me. I am trying to navigate my way through a month of unwritten words to say I have been waiting for Advent. I have been thirsting for a time when believers affirm one another in community and collectively anticipate the promise of new life and fulfilled hope. God has granted me many blessings and I am FILLED with joy at what He is doing; He is good and I can see His goodness. Yet right now I can also feel the ache to know Him and His promises within community. So I guess I need to meet God in a place where I gently acknowledge lack and loneliness and where I hope for Him to draw me into something deeper and more dynamic than I have felt in a while.

What are you waiting for God to bring this Advent?

Merry Christmas. I'll be back soon.

Oh Airplanes.

2010-11-24T19:44:00.006-06:00

So apparently, I have developed a thing with airports and airplanes; they have both started to breed interesting stories for me. About a month ago, I flew to visit Al and had an amazing fall break with her. The time was sweet and we had great conversations, great food, fun shopping and LOTS of laughs. I boarded the plane to fly back to school quite happy and entirely exhausted. I had landed a middle seat on this plane, "hmmm. unfortunate." On my left, I casually glanced towards a sleezy man who was speaking into his cell phone in hushed tones: "No, no, cancel that card. Yes, terminate it immediately." "terminate?" As he spoke, he was tearing up receipts and printed file papers and I was steadily growing more and more uncomfortable . . . and a little curious (maybe I was trying to read over his shoulder. It just so happens that I have GREAT peripheral vision; despite all other forms of vision that I lack). But mostly I was just hating my middle seat more and more.

Then my other seat mate sat down. He was friendly and quick to smile, with a style that probably could have landed him and his sunshine hair in an American Eagle catalog. He was probably 24 and while not my style, he was decidedly more inviting than sketchy credit card man. I decided to angle myself a little more towards Sunshine as I welcomed sleep; it felt so good. The plane took off and I fell softly into a state near unconscious-- until suddenly I was falling, falling, falling, falling, AHHHHH!!! I gasped awake and breathed a sigh of relief; I was still in the plane and the plane was still in the air. But wait. What am I clutching so tightly? I turned with horror to my hand, which still gripped the upper thigh of Sunshine. Quickly I released his leg and stared into his smiling eyes with rising mortification, "I am SO sorry. So, so sorry." I tried to bury my head somewhere in the 12 inches of seat known as mine and could only find my hands so I buried my head in between them and refused to look up for a while. Sunshine then proceeded to order a few shots of vodka; as he threw those back, he grew more talkative. He explained that vodka didn't really affect him too much because he is Ukrainian (which made me laugh in spite of him). We then talked about his homeschool education and his life story, by the end of it all I was listening to his rock opera music and severely disoriented. I'm not this girl-- the girl who winds up awkwardly grabbing a stranger's leg and talking with him the whole plane ride while he sips vodka. What is going on?!

I boarded another plane a few days ago, preparing to come home for thanksgiving. I had forgotten until I reached the airport about the ways that TSA has increased security. I stared at pictures provided at the front of the line to demonstrate what all could be seen with the new X-ray machines. I thought it odd that they only provided a picture of a man, but perhaps that is beside the point; I did not end up having an X-ray machine in my security line. The guy in front of me was stopped and patted down by a 55(ish) year old man with a bristly mustache and glasses. It was my turn next and I looked at the guard with my arched eyebrows as if to say, "Well, sir really?! Are you gonna go there with me?" He straightened up a little and said, "Well come on through, your fine." I smiled and passed, giggling at the slight discomfort I saw in the security guard's face at the new aspects of his job. I then received a text which exhorted me to "not let the Cretans grope" me. That induced additional laughter. Who knows what will happen with me next flight??

That will do for tonight. I am looking forward to writing more; I know it has been a long time. I'll be back here soon this time.

I wish I had a title. It would imply I knew where this was going...

2010-10-22T19:26:00.003-05:00

I stare across the abnormally thin, trendy table at Starbucks, frigid. The air is down to convince the people of Memphis that it is reasonable to buy hot coffee, even when its 80 degrees. I think the whole gimmick is ridiculous and I am sending the barista men bitter thoughts.

I'm reflecting. Classes are posted for next semester. And deep in my gut, I wonder-- English 201: Intro to Fiction Writing--"Yes! NO! what??"

I mean, I don't wear hemp pants and I don't nerdily scribble stories during class . . . often. I only have two piercings presently and they're rather conservatively placed in the lobes of my ears. And don't you see, I don't make things up in my head! I can't. that is so NOT my thing. But I do love writing and I do love truth and somehow I see those two combined. And when they come out of me, it is creative and it's a story, a story that I want to write in full one day, maybe. And so I wonder...

Write stories for class? Write stories to be "peer reviewed" and "edited" and "graded"? If any of you readers try and do that to my blog now, you make me mad (we've reached that point in your readership, I can tell it to you straight). Why would I sign up for that? What happens if I don't! What happens if I do?

The Denim Eating Bicycle

2010-10-09T15:57:00.005-05:00

Oh it is time to write something. The Denim Eating Bicycle was born yesterday, around 6:42 pm. It might be the book I write on college, it might be the catalyst for a different book I write on college, it might be a catalyst to just write, it might be another step for me in believing I could be a professional writer. I don't know. It was a joke with a friend honestly, and I laughingly told her I would write a book and that could be the title and then we started tossing chapter titles back and forth. So I'm going to start the book right now and we shall see where it goes :)

CHAPTER 1: "Ok, Here We Go!"

Let's start with today, for it is here and the fingers of my thoughts can still feel it and mold it into something I hope will be beautiful. Yesterday and everyday that preceded it are untouchable; they will only exist as memories brought back to life with my poor and paltry words. Today I am present and writing and today you are here reading this page, so welcome.

Today I'm an English major and a senior. I live with 5 girls and am the oldest of 5 siblings, and I love all ten of those people dearly (I just realized that I included myself in those 10 people, but I wouldn't classify myself as a narcissist . . . though who would?). Today I love life and today life is writing, dreams of graduate school, connecting with my radically loving parents and my courageously authentic friends, dancing sporadically, laughing regularly, talking loudly, reading voraciously, and traveling perpetually (either in my mind or with my feet) through the story God is authoring in me.

Today I should be writing a paper on Joseph Andrews by Henry Fielding and instead I am listening to "The Minstrel's Prayer" by Cartel and am writing for you, dear reader, and I am writing for me and we are creating this text . . . whatever it will be. At this moment, I am staring out the glass slates of my mutli-colored glass window and am thinking back into my story, my college story, as it were.

Every story begins with a kind of hello. This one began with a goodbye. The world whirled around me, it was spinning with unknown people, full of unknown stories, bursting with uncertainty. Reflecting back on that incipient moment, all that I know I found true was that I was at school and they were leaving; my parents were getting into our car to leave me and drive 10 hours away. They were leaving because we lived in Texas and I chose a school in Tennessee.

And don't misunderstand me, the school I chose was the school of my dreams. It was filled with history, beauty, learning, and adventure and as Julie Andrews would sing, "these are a few of my favorite things." Yet I was still in the middle of a goodbye; Mom and Dad were still leaving and I never wanted to let go of them, even though I had to and even though it was time.

While this will not be one of "those" books (and if you try to make it one, I shall smile condescendingly in your general direction), I must confess that I cried as I clung out my goodbyes to my parents. I cried for the end of childhood and I cried for the great big world I found myself in and I cried with the ache that would grow in my chest that year as I thought of family and home. But even with my tears, I could feel that a new story had assuredly begun for me and I picked up the potential pieces of my life as I watched our car drive away. That's the start I am giving to the story that I'm living now and that's the story that I happen to be penning and let it now be noted that we shall not make a habit of rhyming as we continue because I find it irksome.

Raincheck

2010-10-03T13:44:00.001-05:00

I miss writing for you and I miss the type of writing this space represents for me. But today is a brisk, cold day, made for warm tea and writing papers and unfortunately that means I cannot write for you. Until next time, dear reader...

Fall-ing

2010-09-26T23:35:00.004-05:00

Fall came today. On the heels of a tumultuous weekend for our house, fall came. It was truly the most beautiful first day of fall I have known, if only because I had been aching for it as a dry land thirsts for rain. Tiffany and I ushered in the new season with fall seasonal beers and blankets this evening in the court yard, loving that it was cold enough to make both of those quite welcome. We talked and pondered the past few days in our house, dreamed about Christmas decorations, gazed up into the stars and moon and giggled together as we shared stories. It was sweet and I drank in the truth that God is so good, so faithful and present even as life doesn't make sense. I look forward to coming days and coming dreams, to crisp autumn air and blazing leaves and new life and good friends, to fall and all that it brings.

And that is all I have tonight, I just knew that I needed to write down the day or I would forget it, and we can't forget the days that take our breath away with delight.

The Illustrious TP Controversy

2010-09-17T17:09:00.003-05:00

"We need more toilet paper!" Tiffany announced, sailing into the room. I raised my eyes from my book and up over my glasses, pulling out my skeptical face, "Wait, wait, I just replaced the toilet paper this morning."

"What?"

"Yeah!"

"Well, then where did it go?"

"Well, I don't kn.. oh, no, surely not," and a smile spread out upon my face.

"What?" Tiffany asked wryly, wanting to join the fun.

"Well, Lynn bought toilet paper and was leaving it in the storage cupboard and I assumed it was for general use but..." and a snicker which I pull out only for the most absurd occasions escaped my mouth.

"No!"

"I mean, Lynn is very particular about her things, maybe when I replaced the toilet paper Mandi stole from the public bathrooms with the cushy toilet paper Lynn bought she took the rest to her room and hid it."

Tiffany grasped the wall for support as she clutched her stomach, rolling with laughter and I tipped over on the bed as we roared thinking about our roommates: the cheap kleptomaniac and her luxurious toilet paper hoarding counterpart."

"Maybe she was concerned with how fast the toilet paper was getting used," Tiffany offered.

"So she bereaved us all of paper?!! I mean c'mon, there should have been a warning."

"Yes," Tiffany mused, "I suppose she could have come to us and said, 'I buy my own paper because I have a really sensitive butt-"

"BAH!" My laugh was explosive this time and we buried our heads in our pillows, scared that we would awaken the slumbering housemates we were discussing.

Tiffany resumed, "I mean, I don't need to use her toilet paper if she doesn't want us to"

"So what, we are gonna walk around with individual rolls and carry them with us whenever 'nature should call'?!" I retorted.

Her smile flashed again, "No, I suppose not. So how are we going to broach this: 'Gee I wish we had some toilet paper!'"

"Yes. Yes, that is exactly what I am going to say: 'Hey Lynn do you know where we are keeping the toilet paper? We have run out and I wanted to replace it.'"

By this point we were both in bed and had turned out the light. We tried to each roll over and go to sleep.

"Ha."

"Haha"

"Hehehehehehe"

"HAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHA" and so we heaved on together, unable to keep the tears from spilling out of our eyes: "I just can't believe we are in the middle of this conversation!"

"I know, right!"

Somehow we lulled each other to sleep with laughter. The next day, Tiffany and I left for class and went about our daily schedules. I got back late that day and mounted the stairs, running in to Lynn coming out of the upstairs restroom.

"Hey, Katy."

"Yeah?"

"I noticed we were out of toilet paper so I bought some more."

I managed to smoothly transition my smile of laughter into one of gratitude, "That was really nice of you Lynn, thank you." I glanced quickly to the side where Tiffany sat in our room biting her lip and violently shaking.

"No problem," Lynn said cheerfully.

I smiled again at her as I closed our bedroom door and instantly buried my head in a blanket to join Tiffany in quietly sobbing with giggles.

"We could be the most ridiculous people I know," I confessed.

"Yeah," we called that one wrong."

I walked in to the bathroom later and not only was there one roll of multi-plied, aloe infused, Charmin silkiness on the back of the toilet, there were four rolls, avaliable for people to choose to use as necessary. I laughed again.

In the middle of papers and reading and the grind of school, it's the little things :)

The last last time

2010-09-03T23:57:00.003-05:00

Wow... I am having a really hard time writing this post. Yeah.

I am pulling from II Samuel 18-19 if you need some context for this post.

As I reread this passage, I grieved with David today. And we could argue that across thousands of years, my grief is a little late, but walk with me here. Initially reading of David's grief, I found myself siding with Joab, David's commander who reprimanded David for grieving in front of all the soldiers who had fought to reestablish his legitimacy as king. Joab threatens to leave with his men if David doesn't shape up and at least convey some gratitude to the men who were faithful to him.

And isn't Joab right? Wasn't David being a tad inappropriate as he engaged his loss and felt his grief? It wasn't really the time... there were others to think of.

I was confronted today by how hard and power hungry Joab was and I began to sit with God as he invited me to reexamine David, washing himself in the wrenching agony of loss:

II Samuel 18:33, "When David heard that Absalom was slain he went up into his chamber over the gate and wept, my son, my son, O Absalom my son, would God I had died for thee!"

I asked God today where I fail to fully grieve what has died. Because often, I am my own Joab, hard and concerned with dictated levels of appropriateness. I'm concerned with not being weak for those around me. And what has that cost me? What tears have been swallowed and what parts of my heart have remained wounded as I have become guarded?

I never wrote of leaving home this time. I never talked about saying goodbye or driving away. I cried once before we moved as I thought about all the changes. And as I type, I wonder if its really any of your business and I confess, I want to tell some of you to leave because I don't want to be handled here...

I had to go back, she was protecting me, I knew she was and still I had to go back. "It's ok. you're both tired tonight. I'll go tomorrow. Dad will be there, right?"

"Yes, he will be there if you want to go," I could hear the weariness Mom was leaking. It had been a long, unwelcome, needed day and I had nothing in me to make it better.

"Well, ok, cool. Night then."

"Night."

"I love you."

"I love you, Katy."

The phone line clicked and I tossed my cell onto the bed, then I snuggled up under my covers and fell asleep. The next morning, I didn't think much as I drove. I didn't think about this being the last drive, I didn't think about the late night pranks we had often driven back from on this road, I didn't think about familiar stops on the way, I didn't think of graduation or formal dinners or any good thing that we had gone to and driven back home from on this road afterwards. The whole drive, I spent time not thinking about all of it. And then I pulled into the driveway.

He was cleaning the garage and I smiled to myself, "Daddy cleaning the garage, haha." My smile stayed, deadening on my face as I stepped out of the car and mechanically shoved the door closed. Dad drew near, sweaty, thinking, unlatched today.

"Hey, the garage looks good," I commented, glad I had words to say.

"Yeah, it's pretty much done," he surveyed it. "Want to see inside?" I looked at him. Yep, he had already read in my eyes what needed to happen.

"Sure," I replied.

He walked in first and I ducked in second. The door, swinging loudly, shouted silence behind me. It's clang rang out through the spaces of emptiness, the reverberations ringing through every fiber of my body. My chest constricted and my heart choked and then gasped for air. Everything was cleaned out, everything swept away, everything polished nicely.

Tears gushed instantly, flowing like relief in a dry and parched land. I circled the downstairs, inviting memory to walk with me. I saw Christmas trees and dance parties, cookies, pancakes, Thanksgiving turkeys, birthday glasses of wine, movie nights. I painted the green couch into the scene, it's strong back and big arms holding all of the life I had talked through in that room. Life, death, sisters, brother, boys, friends, questions for God, longings, dreams; the green couch had held me through it all, these walls whispered my story back to me as I soaked them in one more time.

Dad led me up the stairs to my room, the walls of red still forever dancing with who I am and who my parents had invited me to be in my space. My blue checkered cushions were there, they were staying behind on the window box, my window box. "Oh! I didn't realize they were staying," I uttered, as if I was the greatest of traitors who had invited everyone else to a party that the cushions weren't fit to attend. They looked at me like little children pushed away from the playground. "Do you want them?" Dad quickly asked. I had but to nod and he would have gathered them close and placed them in the truck. "No," and the lip of both a girl still little and a woman fully grown quivered, "they belong here." We sat on them together, in a space that was such an incredible expression of who we both are. It sang of Dad's generosity and creativity and it swirled in my beauty and tenderness. And on those blue checkered cushions that Mom had bought to tangibly express me, we cried.

Somehow we found ourselves back in the garage. It was time for me to go, time for Dad to say his final goodbye as he finished the garage. I hugged him close as I walked away, got in my car and cried all the way down Heimer road.

There is new life to be lived, there is God's faithfulness to enjoy, and today, there is time for me to truly remember and grieve.

And so I am feeling ache, even if it is a tad late, so that God can step in and bring joy.

Ode to the Collegiate Feminine Fridge

2010-09-02T20:02:00.005-05:00

Thou chest of savory foods and juices
Thou treasure store of edible delight
Allow me to loudly sing thy praises
and gently mock 6 roommates' appetites

Your shelves hold food of great variety
Your drawers confuse the tastes of my belly
4 types of milk? soy, organic, whole, skim!
pickles, diet coke, mustard and... tubed jelly?

And how old is thine potato skinned soup?
Why is sandy's powerade turning black?
AH! Who needs to eat the seafood medley?
Those bananas are bad, that's just a fact.

Wait, wait, weight shakes and fat free turkey!
Ha! greek yogurt and sugarless apple sauce.
Minced garlic and onions for little chefs
We have acquired enough food to feed a hoss!

And yet we share our foodie collection
We giggle and cook and create and clean,
A collegiate mess of femininity,
A hodge-podge nest of friendship and new dreams

hello hour, allow me to use you intentionally

2010-08-31T17:18:00.004-05:00

An hour. The hour of rest in my restless day. I'm in the middle of it right now, it is ticking away as I type, begging to be well spent. I hope I shall not disappoint it.

I have felt the fullness of my days here. They swirl away, each and every one of them. It is as if I tuck my minutes away in my school bag each morning, reach down into the bag for them later and with a start of shock I realize that dusk is rolling in and I have been leaking minutes away all day long. They are so sneaky that way!

I left my sweet little home at 8:15 this morning, coffee in hand. I interned and read and emailed and discussed and wrote and edited my way through the day, all the way to now, to 5:24. Goodness.

And as I type and try to breathe deeply, my heart rapidly pumps in my chest and my mind spins with "to dos" and "remembers" and "plan for the futures." And in the middle of all of this, I see that I shall have to stop or I shall miss all that I love and choose to pursue with my leaking minutes and spinning days. How is it that each and every year I return to school and forget that I cannot hold everything perfectly? How is it that I find myself worried about application deadlines and GREs and papers all due within 48 hours of one another and I can't step back to see the faithful hand of my God, the beauty HE has written for me.

Sometimes I am a very silly, spinning girl and I forget that truly, everything will be all right, not because I am on top of everything, but because my God is good.

The first last time...

2010-08-25T23:14:00.003-05:00

It's my last chance to write of the first day of school here. it's my senior year.

i'm afraid that this post feels like that Christmas we all have in our lives, the one that you can't get quite right, no matter how much you want to celebrate and how much you try to make it feel magical. perhaps my stories all feel too big to write out. their vivd and saturated. school means more this year: the professors, the friends, the house, the internships, all of it.

The semester already feels extravagant.

I love our house and what it feels like to breathe in its smell as I walk through the door, I love curling up with roommates and blankets to watch movies and laugh into the night, I love my bedroom with its slanted roof and wide, open window.

I love the walk I have each morning to class, across the street, through all the trees, down a random path here or there and to whatever building I'm headed toward for lecture. I love that sometimes I walk through the campus gardens instead and I do it barefoot.

I love my witty professors and that moment in each of their classes when their eyes rested on me as they talked and I realized how much I'd betrayed how enthralled I was by what they were saying.

I love that I am creating a lesson plan this weekend for a brief lecture I'm giving Monday on the difference between summary and analysis.

I love that I bought 30 books for this semester. That's ridiculous, but I love the challenge they pose, I love knowing that I will create, grow, seethe, laugh, and think through those books.

I love that I've arrived, that the senior writing this post is so much more than she knew she was back when she was a freshman or back when she started writing this blog.

I love that God has more here, more than I can say. I love where He has led and where He will lead. I am learning to love the way He lavishes grace upon me, I am learning to rest there.

I love that it is time to go to sleep and that there's always the possibility to dream sweet dreams.

all right?

2010-08-19T10:04:00.005-05:00

"I feel like this summer represents the end of a season." Everything inside me lurched, I had been hoping for a beginning instead of an ending. Dan talked on, sharing his enjoyment of what this summer had been and his uncertainty of what was to come, but even as he reminisced with us, it felt like he was compartmentalizing us as he went. Tim talked, agreeing with lots of what Dan said. I studied their faces, fighting to understand where we all were, struggling to remain engaged in what felt like the bracing reality that summer was over.

I could not escape the heaviness of this final visit with Tim and Dan. We had laughed and cried and argued and narrated and held and wondered through life these past weeks. It had been more than I expected and I had loved it. Now, as I sipped Odwalla juice, I was remembering what goodbye hugs really meant.

Those hugs came soon. Tim squeezed hard as if to say, "I have loved this and will miss you." I squeezed back and he walked away. Next came Dan and his hug felt fairly regular. Maybe it was supposed to say "Nothing is changing" or maybe it said, "I need to be careful, it's not good to hold on to something I'm about to let go of anyway."

"I'm looking forward to reading your blog," he said. Everything inside me fell. I was going to look up in an instant and see School Dan in front of me, School Dan who comments on my blog and forgets the conversations we've had and the places where we have known and sat with one another, School Dan who never calls and occasionally messages me. I laughed a laugh that only I knew was sad and let School Katy respond, "Yeah, I am looking forward to reading yours." And we walked our separate ways, my heart aching for the 3 and a half months he was about to pack up in a box laden with moth balls and labelled "seasonal". And I couldn't do it, I couldn't resign myself to the same story and I couldn't pack away summer, or smash hope down again, "Hey… keep in touch, k?" I think I hid the cry in my voice. Did he have any idea what it took to say that? To fling hope against the reality that history had created, summer after summer and Christmas break after Christmas break? Did he think the friendship we had lived these past 3 and a half months would be worth pursuing or keeping up with this time?

He smiled that smile that betrayed delight in my hope, "Alright," he said. And I turned away, feeling a sob in my chest.

Alright. Alright? No, it's not all right. It's undone and unknown… and can I stay alive here and what would that look like?

Being more than enough instead of everything...

2010-08-15T23:40:00.003-05:00

The morning had been pleasant at D and B's. Wyatt chirped with joy and curiosity as coffee was sipped, waffles were made, and some deep cleaning was preformed to prepare for another busy week. I remember delighting in the 4 of us at the table that morning, normally D or B was at work or there were errands to run or I was still sleeping or meeting a friend. Being chillaxed and being together felt sweet, there was little expectation or responsibility.

Then my phone began to ring with something that felt appropriate for a hyper active aerobics class (why is that my ringtone?!)

"Hello" I answered.

"Hey, K" It was my dad.

We talked for a few minutes and as we conversed, I was rubbed by the oddness that he and my siblings are staying in one house while I am in another and mom is helping Al move to college as we navigate the difficulties of having successfully sold a home prior to purchasing a new one. He needed babysitting help, a typically easy chore for an elder sister, so I said "Yes!" eager to make this all feel normal and lend a hand because that was what was needed. But I'm not just the eldest, who can make everything work and all this that's going on isn't normal.

My sisters and brother were dropped off 45 minutes later than anticipated, meaning that the hour I had planned on babysitting would now extend into a interview I had to give, scheduled to begin in 40 minutes. Still, having informed D and B of what was up, I felt ok with this and my brother rushed up with me to my room to talk computer stuff (so much for me being the responsible babysitter, I seemed to have kicked into 'sister of a teenager' mode pretty fast and left B with 3 kids of her own to handle downstairs). Soon Steve got a phone call for lunch and looking to me for approval (I guess my role is the permission giving adult now), I considered who was driving and knowing how fun that would be, told Steve we could probably make that work. His ride set up, I raced downstairs to let D and B know that I had to leave (now I am 'prompt ministry interviewer' and 'really jerky babysitter' all at the same time).

As I conducted my interview, my phone rang. It was Dad, now ready to pick up the girls. Me, still being 'prompt ministry interviewer' and 'really jerky babysitter', acted in both a polite and uninformed manner and passed Dad off to B and told him to check in with her.

Anyone else swirling in my various roles yet or banging their head against a wall at my ridiculousness? It gets better!

Upon leaving the interview, I call Dad back to make sure everything is ok. He says yes but then begins to rattle off his concerns about Steven. I remember the lunch I cleared him for, remembered that he was 15, remembered that he still needed things like parental permission to partake in such activities and began to feel defensive for the little brother I could feel a grilling coming to. Now I took on the role of 'defender/moderator' with Dad. This role slipped on fast, it is well worn with many people. Dad didn't budge a whole lot and while I didn't know how to hold all the energy he put behind his reasoning, I could see he had really legit points to make about how Steven should engage with his parents instead of his sister and how I could be a part of making that happen. By the end of the conversation, I was 'daughter who forgot her siblings are younger than her' and I was feeling pretty full.

'Daughter who forgot her siblings are younger than her' is a role that feels pretty gross: I looked at my self centeredness and after a couple minutes, shirked away into 'college student looking for fun.' A phone call later, I had plans for the late evening and with that, I had gained enough space to stop spinning quite so fast. A moderate stretch of road remained between me and my summer home with D and B and as I drove upon that road, a bracing reality confronted me: "You, Katy, just handled all of that rather poorly. In trying to be and do everything, you made it costly to be close to you these past couple hours."

"Oh dear," I thought, now already pulling up to the house. I walked in and dad was preparing to leave with the little girls, who with their passionate adventures and energetic spontaneity, had riled Wyatt up too much to sleep while I was gone. As I hugged the fam and looked forward to dinner later with them, I could read in B's eyes and D's stride what I already knew to be true: my desire for 'normal' had turned into a sabotaged Sunday for us all. In the next few minutes, after Wyatt was finally put down for a nap, everything spilled out and while, in a sense, it hurt to hear my analysis of things affirmed, it felt immeasurably relieving to hear B note that in the past couple hours she had experienced me entirely inconsistent with my usual self. We talked more of the ways we could flex and communicate and help, we talked of places where I could keep myself in the middle of the craziness. Soon, we had broken out left over champagne cake and the wine we had purchased for something special for the 3 of us and sat on the couch finishing a movie we had started together, honoring who we really are in the rest and fellowship of one another. We paused throughout the flick to talk out places that surfaced for me as I sought to name what I want and need in relationship. Reflecting on the day and my botched attempt to fulfill an impossible (and rather faithless) desire for normalcy, D and B's choice to pursue and enjoy me felt like incredible redemption.

The night resulted in some impactful time with my dad and brother and sisters, time where I remembered how to sit in the tension of abnormality without masking it or accommodating it. I wish I could do that more naturally... believe that all of who I am and am not is all that is needed and is what the people who love me love best about me. I can't be everything to you, I can't make things normal, and sometimes I will be disappointing. I can listen and hope and laugh and hold. I can scream and cry and light up with delight. I can feel and stick around and speak truth in the middle of abnormal if what your hoping for is authenticity. I can be me and somehow that's more than enough, even when I acknowledge that everything's too much.

Climbing Mountains: Thursday

2010-08-02T13:21:00.010-05:00

4 a.m. is NEVER happy. Nor do I feel that every mountain that exists is there to climb. That being said, Thursday was always peak hike day at camp and our peak was there to climb on this dark and early rising Thursday. The girls and I walked around in the cabin like a pack of zombies, clothing ourselves in our hiking gear. Then it was down to the dining hall to chow down on some food. Around 5:50, we were loading up in a van to drive to the trail head and meet the boys we would be hiking with. I was asked if I cared to drive the van and as I reminisced over the beautiful shelf road that led to the trail head, complete with its very own perilous curves and plummeting mile drop off, I smiled and declined, requesting an alternate driver. I then lept into the passenger seat to take on the role of van chaplain (aka person who prays that we all live to reach the trail head).

We survived the shelf road and by 6:45 we had met up with the guys and were prepared to hike. Biggles would be the hike leader that day and while I knew little of Biggles prior to this morning, I ascertained much of his character through the following statement, "Right, well we are going to take 3 breaks on this hike." I almost laughed out loud, fortunately I chose to study Biggles' face first and found no trace of a joke. He was going to run us into the ground.

"I don't want us taking off packs or sitting down. If any of you sit down, I will make you run 25 yards away from me and 25 yards back." I glanced at the girls. They raised their eyebrows and looked from one to the other, "Is this guy crazy?!" Then they looked at me. I tried to come up with a face that communicated, "YES, HE IS INSANE!!!!!" and "I entirely respect and support Biggles' decision" at the same time. It was difficult and led to general sentiments of frustration and helplessness among my girls.

A few more instructions and we were off, clipping up the mountain. You may laugh but we cleared tree line in an hour and when I hiked this mountain with just staff, we took 2 hours to pass tree line. Soon it started to rain and my girls girded themselves in the plastic ponchos their mothers all gave them to qualify as "rain gear." Meanwhile, I pulled out my all terrain, all weather rain/wind breaker which also doubles as a parachute and my water pants which happen to double as a flotation device. On we trodded, my concern for my girls steadily increasing as the rain continued to fall and the oxygen in the air continued to thin. Sullenly I wondered, "What will take effect first, hypothermia or ataxia?" I am remembering now that I don't tend to be the most joyful of hikers.

The group reached the mountain's saddle by lunch... and we celebrated by feasting. There is something sweet about eating while on top of a spectacular view and while ravenously hungry. We were probably the most content people in the world for that moment in time, we had pushed up against something hateful and long and arduous to behold something breathtaking and magnificent, we had persevered and this time, we had gained the glory that comes with perseverance.

Later that night, I thought about contentment again as the girls and I sat around the bonfire with all the other counselors and campers. It was sharing time and my girls did not disappoint. They spoke of all that they had felt and learned this week. About the Father who was so much more than just a judge or creator but who loved them intimately. They admitted that for the first time they knew it was ok to cry and ok to feel. They boldly stated that they had no doubt that with God all things are possible. And I couldn't keep the tears from my eyes as I shared that the girls had taught me so much about God's impeccable timing and care for us. "It has been my joy to come to know you and watch as you came to know and love one another. You have shown me that God has each of us exactly where we're supposed to be and that His timing is perfect."

Even though the day had begun so early, the girls and I spent our last evening together talking late in to the night, laughing and crying and hugging in the cabin. I looked on all of them and smiled; they were bonded for life. God left an indelible mark on each of them that week. He left an indelible mark on me. And just as we had spent all morning climbing that wretched mountain, we had spent all this week pushing against a wretched reality and we found ourselves now at this place where finally, all anyone could see was beauty. It was a precious night.

We can only be Us: Wednesday Part 2

2010-08-01T10:46:00.003-05:00

As we skipped towards power pole, I was fairly certain we would be there hours upon hours, "My girls are going to be terrified," I thought.

Down we went, approaching the 30 fit tall pole of doom, a trapeze suspended in front of it for which the girls would jump. Everyone clamored around me to see who would go first. Chewy volunteered: "I want to go first!" she spoke defenitively. "Well, ok. That's fine." I had bets placed on her that she would not suffer a complete paralysis from fear, therefore, she seemed an appropriate choice to go first.

Up the pole she scurried, hopping on top of it rather quickly. She turned towards the trapeze and as I watched her shift her weight from foot to foot, I realized she was about to freeze, worried about jumping and entrusting her weight to the belayer managing her ropes below. I was surprised at first, she had passed through the most challenging parts of the activity with such ease, jumping was a painless experience... almost like flying. And then it dawned on me: Chewy never trusted anybody, she lived her life in self dependancy. We were asking her to try something that had always led to betrayal for her, something she had vowed not to do in her everyday life: place herself in the care of someone else.

"Chewy," I said, "Look here, Nacho is your belayer and he has you pulled tight. can you feel the tension on your rope?"

"Uh huh."

"That's him. You can trust him, Chewy. He has you and won't let you fall. Now jump."

"Uh. hahahah" Even when panicked, she still tried to play it cool.

"Jump, Chewy. Trust him....No, don't grab the rope, you'll burn your hand." She couldn't take care of herself this time. "Go for the trapeze. Stretch out! You can reach it."

"What if I don't?"

I began to understand how much jumping in and of itself would mean for her. "Then just jump. Who cares if you catch the trapeze?" she took a deep breath and walked off the edge, Nacho pulled the rope tight to catch her in mid air. She screamed with the first step and laughed in relief as she floated down to the ground, Nacho letting the rope out slowly.

"Great job, Chewy!" I exclaimed, drawing near to assist her with her harness. "Great job."

The other girls each climbed the pole with relative ease. They followed Chewy's example and those who struggled struggled where they had watched Chewy battle to have faith. But as each jumped for that trapeze and as those that failed to grab it swung back to the pole to climb and jump again, my amazement at their courage and their commitment to one another grew. The girls cheered for one another and fought to accomplish the task before them. They were unyeilding to fear.

The activity ended on time and I beamed at what they had accomplished. sending them up towards the cabin, I began to prickle with anticipation for the celebration I hoped our camp fire would bring and sought to rally some counselors up to assist in the festivities.

"Wonder!" I called out to Allison.

"What's up?"

"You want in on my cabin's campfire?"

"Yeah, sure."

"Sweet! Fair warning: we aren't going to be serious... at all. We are going to laugh and joke around with them and have a great time. But no testimonies or heavy questions or singing slow songs." They didn't need to hold anymore seriousness today. After all, this was camp. "You got it?"

"Sure sounds great. I'll round up Stretch and CB to come too."

"Good, and I'll go get Steven from the kitchen crew." I have a rule: bring Steven (my brother) to events that you want to be fun.

The crew was readily assembled, the marshmallows; chocolate; and graham crackers packed, and the girls eager to s'more themselves. And thus up the Tomahawk Trail we climbed. Soon Wonder and I turned back to the girls, "We're here!" we announced. "Spend some time gathering your s'mores sticks and we will build a fire." Within seconds, they were off like pixies in Neverland.

Steve and I constructed the fire. As I smiled at what I considered to be a happy glow and a steady blaze, Steve jabbed at the flames and smirked, "This fire's lame sauce."

"Fine then!" My Burly Mountain skills from earlier that day being extinguished. "You fix it."

A couple of substantial logs later, we had a fire worthy of that cult called the Aggies, down in Texas, and it was time for the s'mores talk to begin. The girls gathered around as Allison and I made our way to the front. Al leaned in close and whispered, "I always do the s'mores talk in a British accent. Just follow my lead."

"Right," I said, pouring my accent on thick. I didn't go to Oxford for nothing ;)

Soon Wonder was explaining the imperative task of lubricating a s'mores stick while affectionately referring to me as "Pippy," who happened to be brandishing more of a s'mores spear at that moment, while Steven quoted lines from Harry Potter in his own British accent and CB and Stretch took to talking like elderly British women, known as Mrs. Nezbit and Mrs. McCreedy, respectively (the fact that CB is a man was immaterial to the identities of said British women). Ultimately, the entire s'mores talk led to Wonder and I tusseling in the dirt as I successfully wrenched our perfect s'more from her hands and delicately nibbled it in front of her face, my girls laughing uproarisly. Their laughter continued as Steven challenged Stretch to a Chubby Bunny face off which resulted in 55 marshmallows within each contestant's mouth: "Shuvvy Punn-eee!"

Looking back on the whole of Wednesday, it would be easy to call it just "another day at camp." But I am also struck by all that my girls and I needed to feel that day: the silliness, community, inadequacy, sadness, vulnerability, fear, faith, and laughter. Wednesday engaged all of those girls' hearts and required all of mine. It was camp at its height, my siblings and I at our very best, and the adventure of life we should embrace daily. All in all, a GREAT day and God was in the middle of all of it.

I can only be me, and that's really all they want: Wednesday Part 1

2010-07-30T21:03:00.008-05:00

I'm tempted to stop writing about camp right now... it's like I have let enough out that I could just move on in my life and not worry about finishing the story. But I think it is important for me, dear reader, and that is where you get to sit in and cheer I suppose... or invite me to reconsider or think more deeply. So thanks for tuning in and I will keep recalling and processing what happened that week at camp.

"It's ok!!! I have you, can you feel me holding you in your harness?"

I unwilling opened my eyes...

"Now just walk across the cable, you're safe in your harness!"

"Allison"--

"Trust me, you're safe!"

"Hey Al, you're asleep."

"See I have you!!"

"WONDER!"

"Huh, what?!"

"You're sleep talking."

"Oh... crap."

"Night."

"Night, Katy."

Ever dreamed you're belaying a camper on a high ropes course? Me either. But Allison has... at 2 in the morning. Welcome to Wednesday.

A delightful 5 hours later, I awoke to greet Allison a little more kindly than i had earlier that morn. Today was a camp theme day, Burly Mountain Woman day to be precise. And with my girls so excited, I was all about rising to the occassion. With an eye liner stick and a fearless embrace of the ridiculous, I quickly grew a rather scraggly beard and a precocious mustache (for of course all BMW's are bearded). My girls joined suite, bearding themselves and smearing mud on their faces, sticking pine needles in their tangled hair. We were quite a fearsome sight:

We ferociously consumed breakfast (the benefit of made up beards being that nothing got stuck in them) and I prepared for a talk I needed to have with the camp supervisor, wishing that my beard would give me a little more courage. "Hey Sasquatch," I hollered, catching sight of her. "Hey Tonka," she returned, "What's up?"

Here we go. "I am concerned about leading my girls on an overnighter tongiht that leads directly into hiking a 14,000 ft mountain tomorrow." This is what the schedule had informed me was suppossed to happen and I felt wholly unprepared to offer that.

"You just think it's too much for the girls?" she asked.

"Yeah..." I looked at her. "Ok, it's me. I am here for these girls and dedicated to giving them a great experience and the campout is too much. I can't be responsible for cooking that many meals in the wild and setting up tents and waking the girls up at 4 am to hike." I then stood in the reality of my self proclaimed inadequacy. it actually felt pretty good, not trying to hold everything together.

"Ok," she said.

"Ok?"

"Yeah, ok. Lead them through their activites today. We'll give them an extra one to compensate for not leaving early on the campout and then tonight you guys can build a campfire, make s'mores, come back here to sleep and wake up for the peak hike tomorrow after being in your normal beds and eating a camp cooked breakfast. Does that work?"

SCORE!!!!! "Yes, we can definitely make that work. Thanks, Sasquatch." I left to tell the girls the schedule for the day. Even if it didn't strike them as unusual, it felt extravagant to me. I found myself more engaged in what they were doing because I felt as if I could breathe thanks to the new freedom of the day.

Part of our Wednesday was about one on one time with the girls, hearing how their week of camp had been and what they were hoping for as a result of camp. It was curious to hold where they all were. Their words revelaed so much more than they realized and I began to hear where their souls lived as they talked about activities:

"God punished our impatience during biking by killing our friend. I don't know how to be in relationship with Him and I don't know how to accept my own worth and beauty"

"There are no assurances with God and I have no right to ask anything, we shouldn't be praying about me, we should be praying about my aunt in purgatory"

"I can't stand girls who are all focused on their beauty. I know who I am and I won't play any games or be weak or needy. I have everything together"

"Am I a bad person because I don't pray or read my Bible everyday? I am just so scared that God isn't real or if He is that He doesn't want me. How do I know what is true and how do I hold on to that when I am not at camp?"

"I love it here and I never want to leave. I have never had friends like this in my life. My friends at school, they are kind of "the wrong crowd" I guess. I feel like I have to act bratty and rude to fit in. I have to by something other than myself and really, I just want to be me."

"It has been a weird week. I've been really sad, really scared, and really happy. I'm glad I came, glad to know God is always going to be with me, and glad to have a couple more days to be here."

"I am saved. I went to a different camp one time where the man said that if we hadn;t ever talked to God we needed to stand up and talk to Him right there. So they made me stand up and I talked and now I am saved... what is relationship with God? What do you mean?"

"Yeah, this week has kind of sucked... Look, I used to feel and it just led to betrayal. I want to find someone some day I can feel with and I respect you Tonka but I need to keep myself safe... right, I am not going to tell you everything that is going on... what do you mean if I'm excited about living without feeling anything, is there another choice?... you think God was inviting me to feel again by bringing me to camp this week?"

"This has been hard and scary but I'm really glad I came. I am glad for what I am learning and for the friends I am making. You know Tonka, I like you, you are fun and like to laugh and think about things deeply, but you have this ornery streak too, like you won't give up on anything."

"I don't want to be here and I don't want to talk. I just want to go home, I want to go home right now."

After conversing with all of girls, I wondered about our time together. I had asked them hard questions and taken them seriously, I had treated their fears and concerns as valid, I had sat in their heart ache and felt it with them. What a curious concoction of silly, messy, empathy I was turning out to be. And now I had to take a camper to the office to call her mom because she was convinced she wanted to go home and there was still Power Pole to surive and s'mores to be had...

Oh girls! Tuesday

2010-07-27T20:10:00.007-05:00

I was up early that Tuesday. The sun had started streaming through my bandanna covered window around 6 and someone in the cabin had been rhythmically snoring all of last night. When my alarm actually went off at 7, I awkwardly hopped off the top bunk and pushed my groggy self through the door to the next cabin over where all my girls slept. "Good morning, ladies! Time to wake up!!" I made eye contact with each of them to confirm that they had actually heard my morning salutation and then returned to my own room to dress for the day. I pulled out a bright orange shirt with a Tonka truck on it, and slipped it on. It felt good to pull that shirt over my head... Al made it for me last year so everyone would know my camp name.

I threw my rain gear into my pack, filled up my water bottle and rallied my 10 troops together for breakfast. We blazed down the trail to the dining hall and rapidly devoured our food (actually I just sipped coffee... but you get the idea). Soon we were off to Adventure Course. That event is one of my favorites... the girls have to complete challenging simulations together, learning to rely on one another and work as a team. This meant that I spent the morning informing THE natural leaders of my group that they had to wear blindfolds or had been struck mute by a terrfiying form of malaria and telling my strongest girls that their arms had been bit off by sharks. The girls then had to learn how to depend on one another when they were robbed of their greatest forms of self protection and independance. It was awesome. They laughed and I laughed, they succeeded and I cheered. As we gave them their final task: to swing across a molten river of lava while avoiding a pit of crocodiles and delivering vaccines to the disease ridden tribe of Wannahockaluggees in ancient Romania, Buttons ran up to me and softly informed me, "Their planning on telling the girls this afternoon."

My heart dropped and my stomach filled with acid. "Ok," I muttered numbly, placing a smile on my face for the girls as they turned my way. My head was a sea of discomfort. I couldn't make everything feel right, I wanted to be honest with the girls and I wanted to protect them, I knew they had the right to greive and I wanted to preserve their joy. As I delighted in my girls, I ached for a coming loss of their innocence and wondered if it was my place to stop that loss.

I was informed after lunch that my girls would be individually informed of their fellow camper's death and that then the entire camp would be notified. Walking heavily back to the cabin,I found myself thinking, "How will they respond to this? What can I say to them?"

I entered the cabin. The girls were asking one another where all of their cabinmates stuff was,Krazen had come in this morning to pack it all away for the girl's parents. "Girls," I said, "We have a meeting right now."

"Do we need all our stuff?" they asked.

"No, just bring yourselves."

They would tell me later that they knew something was wrong at that point from the look on my face, they just didn't want to believe it was as bad as it was. the girls and I entered the school house to find a circle of rather serious looking people: EMTs who had been on scene, the Camp CEO, Dannon, other full time camp staff. As the girls took seats, Dannon came up to me and wrapped his arms around me. "I am so glad God brought you for this."

His words brought forth my tears as I hugged back. That moment held incredible pain as I thought of the precipice my girls stood on and it also brought unutterable joy as I realized that my presence was the miraculous gift God had chosen for this week. I was the woman he picked to hold the hearts of his precious daughters, I was the comfort he sent for the staff, I was the light he chose to exude his hope. I was held captive in the middle of an adventure I never would have asked for and that my heart had been aching for. I took my seat among the girls.

The CEO shared the news of the camper's death and the responses were instantaneous. Gasps and sobs rang out all around. All of the girls, save Chewy, cried within seconds. Chewy was my oldest, hardest camper and she never cried at all, a reality not lost upon me as I held some of the others.

Upon sharing the news, the staff left and in some ways it felt like they had unleashed a tornado and had given me the task of healing and restoring what the wreckage of their words had undone. As the girls held each other and desperately wiped away their tears, the other counselors resorted to scriptures from Ecclesiastes and Jeremiah and Romans to assure the girls that God ruled and planned every season of our lives and this event was a part of his will. And as I heard their words, Iknew they were right and I felt their band aid verses ringing hollow in my own heart.

Looking into each of the girls faces I asked, "Girls, what do you need right now?"

They stared, bereft of ideas of comfort.

"We can pray, we can go back to the cabin, we can play games and have ice cream if you need to not be sad..."

Their faces brigthened as they were given permission to feel happy, "We need ice cream and games!" they said.

I laughed and took them down to the coffee shop which was opened especially for them in honor of their friend. Her favorite treat was ice cream and so the girls were all given ice cream in memory of her. As they ate their various flavors, we played games.

Counselors continued to walk in and give the girls general reasons why everything was ok and I could see that it felt good for people to hold the girls and tell them truth. At the same time, I had a growing realization that the girls didn't need verses which preached God's power and comfort as much as they just needed God's power and comfort themselves. And they needed to know it was ok both to laugh and to cry, and it was still ok to be a child in the middle of loss. They were going to need abundant and hopeful laughter, faith, and life this week.

Holding: Monday Part 3

2010-07-26T23:56:00.000-05:00

“Is our friend hurt?” they asked as we walked towards the coffee shop.
“Yeah, she fell.”
“Is it bad?”
“It’s pretty bad,” I calmly replied, hoping to feel honest and yet also stable. I had picked them up fast enough that they didn’t seem to really understand what was going on. Once inside the coffee shop, we met up with a couple counselors I hadn’t met before. We, the counselors, decided to circle up with the girls and pray. Hanging in the balance of miraculous possibility and shattering reality, we begged for healing, precision, calm, and peace. I found words spilling out, “Father, I know not what level of comprehension she currently has and what she is feeling or hearing or experiencing” and the tears that hadn’t come yet began to well up, threatening to spill over. I blinked. “I pray that she feels your overwhelming peace and love right now, that she has no shadow of a doubt that you are in the middle of what is going on. I pray that she isn’t afraid.” The prayer ended and the other counselors quietly went back to their responsibilities, I hunted for something to preoccupy the girls: Apples to Apples, the perfect distraction for what was really going on outside and up the camp bike trail. We tossed around cards and I was half heartedly contributing as the girls giggled together: the adjective was “Gracious,” I threw in “Supermodels.”
After a few minutes, we heard the ambulance. The girls’ heads popped up…”Is that for her?” they asked with surprise. “Yeah it is. We want to make sure we are prepared and taking the best care of everyone that we can.” They seemed pacified with the explanation and returned to the game. 20 minutes later, I walked to the front deck, out of sight from the game. I kept waiting for the ambulance to speed away and yet it remained stationary, its angry lights continuing to blink with meaningless urgency, I couldn’t see her or our medical team anywhere. “Beeming her down will take a while” I told myself. Zoo walked up, “Where are we at? I want to know specifically what I should be praying for.” I kept it analytical and gave him the facts as I had them. He responded in kind, “Well you know if she was A&O*0 and unresponsive…”
“I know Zoo,” I didn’t need him to voice the thoughts permeating my brain. “UInless she rapidly regained consciousness and the bleeding stopped we’re looking at severe mental trauma or… yeah.”
“Right. I’ll be praying.”
“yeah.” I walked back inside to the girls and smiled as their eyes flitted from one girl to another, as if they all were privy to the greatest of inside jokes. “Well you are a mischievous lot. Aren’t you?” At this, the torrent of laughter burst forth and I laughed too: laughed and lived and wondered. Another 10 minutes and I could see staff members spraying our dusty front field down with a hose. “We’re life flighting her out,” I thought. Sure enough, the gentle hum of a helicopter could soon be heard far away and it steadily grew until dirt was being pitched every which way and the helicopter landed 50 ft. from where we sat. The girls were now plastered to the windows. “It’s alright girls, it’s alright. Go ahead and come back to the game.” I didn’t want them seeing the eminent rush to the helicopter; the team would certainly be coming down the trail any second now.

15 minutes passed and I expectantly trudged to the front deck again. The helicopter still sat on the field. Allison walked up. “Hey Wonder,” I smiled quietly. Her eyes were full and I drew her close, this hug stemming from a different place in my soul than the one I had given her 2 hours before. We were quiet for a moment. “There are whispers,” she said simply.
“What whispers, Al?” I asked wearily.
“I think she might have died.”
The girl’s name flooded my mind again and this time a face came as well. I knew her. I knew her smile and I knew her laugh and I knew her timidity and I knew her victories, I knew her curly blonde hair and her glorious dimples. She had been in my cabin last year, she was one of my campers. I pushed Allison’s words out of my head. “She doesn’t know for sure. She isn’t up there.” The helicopter waited.
Wonder and I heard tears around the side of the deck and walked over to some other counselors, worried and wondering. Allison sat among them, rocking her sobbing friend and speaking soft comfort in her ear. I turned away from the tears and saw Dannon, my dear friend and former boss, walking towards us. “Oh no,” I whispered and leaned against the wall, anticipating the support I would need. He sat down in front of me, the other girls to the side. “The paramedics have pronounced her dead.” In the midst of the instantaneous gasps and tears I heard around me, his words rang hollow. I had already read them on the script of his face and had nothing to fully feel yet. Instead my mind continued to click away. I breathed out slowly, “What do we tell the other girls?” I asked.
“We aren’t allowed to legally reveal anything yet. You can’t go on facebook, you can’t call home, and the girls can’t know.”
“Alright,” and I looked into his eyes, “I have them then. I’ll take them up to the cabin and look after them.” With that I walked back inside, breathed two deep breaths, and joined up with the girls.
It was almost mechanical at first, telling them that they had free time but also instructing them not to leave the cabin. I told them I would sit right outside the cabin as they hung out and played. I told them I needed to journal. They appeared totally relaxed, “Ok. Journal away!”
“Thanks, girls.”
Out on the deck I was confronted by the most glorious of sunny, cool, breezy mountain days. I pulled out my pen and as I started to write, Sasquatch walked up. “Tonka, we’re making you the group leader for these girls.” I stared. “Snow is considerably shook up and I will need you to take over for this week. I have a schedule right here…” I reached out for the schedule. “Are you going to be ok?” she asked.
“Yes. I can do this.”
“And I know it sounds terrible, but for the time being, we are operating business as usual, we can’t talk about anything.”
“I know.” I let her leave, understanding that she now had 90 million requirements that had just fallen onto her plate. She left and I rapidly wrote:
Dear God,
You have once again thrown me headlong into the lives of girls at this camp and I have to be quick… there is not much time to process and feel all this. All I can say is that I need you desperately and I want to be present for these girls. You brought me out here when you did for a reason. Hold me together. Keep me soft, alive, hopeful. Why do you ask for so much?
Pika walked up kindly, she had heard everything that had happened. “It wasn’t supposed to be like this, huh?” she sullenly laughed.
“Haha, yeah, not so much,” I gave her a real smile because it felt good to genuinely enjoy something.
“How you feeling about group leading?” she pressed in.
I looked down the path away from the cabin. “I’m a little nervous.” She let me sit in the quite for a moment.
“God knew exactly what He was doing bringing you here. Think about it, you arrived within an hour of the accident. He has this and you in His hands.”
“You’re right.”
“I love you,” she whispered as she enfolded me in her arms.
I had missed her.
Soon it was time to gather the girls for dinner. I explained to them that Snow was a little worn out from the day and I would be helping her out this week with leading the group. After several questions that involved my honest but evasive answers, they joined me in marching down to the dining hall. We ate and as I looked into their faces, I came to a startling realization: I knew none of their names. “I have been protecting myself by keeping them out,” I thought. “ And now I need to let them in and I need to walk in to what they are struggling with. I need to know them by name.” And so the Soda Crackers (for that is what they had dubbed themselves) and I got to know one another and I began to listen for their longings and needs and the places where God would ask me to meet them in the coming week. I began to love them.
After dinner, the campers ran to speaking time and the counselors went to the field to meet together. Al, Pika, and I sat near one another. I saw Dannon walking up and watched as he kneeled down before us with effort, clutching his Bible. “Today,” he began, “we had a little girl pass away—“
Those were the only words he was able to utter for some time, succumbing to the sobs he had suppressed all day. As I felt his cries, I found my own, we all did. We cried together for what was lost and suffered, for the places where we still didn’t understand our God, for the hole we now felt. And then we sang to Him, we sang loudly and recklessly and brokenly, we sang together. And soon it was time to gather my girls and lead them in an evening discussion concerning their beauty and matchless worth in the eyes of their Heavenly Father, I told them of the love He had for them and of his willingness to do anything to bring them closer to Him.
And that was Monday

Emergency Me: Monday Part 2

2010-07-25T10:08:00.008-05:00

As I neared Roller coaster, I saw Dannon, Sasquatch, and Brandi running ahead of me towards the crash that we had each heard about moments before. I stopped short as they continued to run. Each of those members of permanent staff was my superior and more experienced and qualified in medical emergencies... I found myself considering now where I was most needed. I redirected my course to the office, those staff members would do everything they could at the scene, but they would need someone at home base to call in emergency rescue if this was really hairy. I chose to run away from a still faceless and bleeding camper, hoping that I would be expediting their rescue.

I barged into the office, snatching a radio and rounding a corner to come upon Twinkle, sitting with her hands clasped and her eyes small. "I heard. I heard, Twinkle. Where are we at?"

"I don't know. Just waiting."

"How can I help?"

"I--"

"Base, this is Dannon. Go ahead and call 911."

"We need more info: name, age, vital signs, extent of injuries," Twinkle rattled off the list.

"Twink, call," I said, "call and I'll stay on the walkie talkie." She dialed and I wrote down the name and age of the little girl who had fallen on the bike trail. Her name snagged my memory, feeling oddly familiar. "This is Tonka at base, over. Where is the camper bleeding from and is she conscious or responsive?"

"Breathing but neither conscious or responsive. Bleeding out of both her nose and ears, over."

"Shit," I whispered as I wrote down the information and slid it over to Twink to read out on the phone. And still I had that prayer numbly rolling around in my head, "God, please." Twink's call was short, the response team didn't need much more information to figure out how much they were needed. As Twinkle hung up Krazen, the assistant camp nurse and a good friend from last summer, walked in.

Upon Twinkle confirming that the 911 call had been made, I turned to Krazen, "Where are we at?" I asked.

"Waiting for the ambulance. The group of campers are still at the bottom of the hill alone. Can you go get them? We need them safe and taken care of as the support team arrives."

I exhaled, "Yep, I'm on it." I headed out of the office again and back to the foot of the trail. This time I didn't run, keeping myself calm. 10 girls waited for me at the bottom of the hill, their fellow camper and counselor hidden behind the trail's sharp curves. "Hey girls, I'm Tonka and I am here to take you back to camp. Go ahead and get back on your bikes."

Their eyes were big and yet their faces softened as I gathered them up. They had been waiting below for at least 10 minutes with no answers and no comfort, I now represented both. As the first EMT on the scene pulled up, I guided the girls back towards the heart of of camp and we headed to the coffee shop, me hoping that I would soon be miraculously handing them back to their counselor, Snow, and the unconscious camper she was sitting with.

coming back: Monday

2010-07-24T22:48:00.011-05:00

"It feels like coming home," Steven said. I watched the sweeping pine trees covering the mountains that we now drove around, my ears ringing with the sense of belonging my brother found in returning to Camp. My stomach sloshed with ambivalence. "What is this week going to be like and what am I doing here?" I pondered in my head. Mom turned around with those perceptive golden eyes, "How are you feeling, K?" I leaked some of my uncertainty but also found myself confessing, "Steve's right, there is something that loosens up as we drive back here. It feels like walking barefoot... I've missed it."

We turned into the camp driveway and memories pleasantly swept to my mind. My smile got bigger as we parked and plunged out of the road-tripping van-- even in 2 days 18 hours of driving feels terrible. "The dining hall, Steve! They just finished lunch, let's go!" He took off with me, across the field where I had spent evenings last summer playing games with campers. "Stop!" Dad yelled. We turned around, confused until we saw her, jogging over from the high ropes course, hair flying, chacos and sunglasses on, smile wide: Allison Wonderland.

"Al!!!" I raced with Steve, feeling the high altitude and struggling for air. Steve reached her first and spun her around and then she was on top of me, squeezing me tight. "Hey!" she laughed as we rocked back and forth. More hugs were exchanged and we all headed up to the dining hall together. Once there, the greetings continued. I saw Buttons first, she let out a yell drenched in her North Carolina accent and leaped into my arms "I've missed you!" she cried. I laughed, "Missed you too!" Had I really been gone a year? Then I heard the shriek of joy I had been waiting for, "TONKA!!!!"

"PIKA!!!" I yelled. To have the friend who had held so much of my heart last summer and allowed me to hold so much of hers standing before me now, clutching me tight, was too sweet. We talked and laughed recklessly, mindful that much had changed in our lives and yet also hesitant as we sought to cross the barrier 11 months creates. I promised her time to unpack more and catch up and then Allison and I headed up to her cabin so I could unpack. As I smoothed out my bed and breathed in that cabin smell (a winning combination of dirt, trail mix, childhood, and pine wood) I thought contentedly to myself that I was back, unaware of the radical week that would begin for me in only an hour.

The family, save Steven and I, drove away within 10 minutes of me unpacking. They would not be staying at camp this week. Steve was set up to cook in the kitchen and that left me curious what I would do with myself for the next 5 days. Allison had already run back down to high ropes to begin belaying the day's second group of campers and as I surveyed the cabin and pulled on a camp ball cap, I decided to join her down at the course. I walked across camp, waving at the familiar faces from last summer that I ran into and smiling awkwardly at counselors new this summer that I didn't recognize. Running down the hill to the high ropes course, I surveyed the familiar trees and cables that I had worked so many fearful kids through and then scooted up to Al to see what I could do. Al quickly introduced CB (real name Evan), the high ropes supervisor. He was fun and we talked some as Al and the other counselors assigned to high ropes took the kids through the various elements of the course. And as we joked around, I couldn't escape the thought, "I don't seem to be needed... this is going to be a very chill week." Then the camp wide walkie-talkie attached to CB's bag blared. My pulse jolted, my back prickled, and I sharply inhaled. "No, I misheard," was what I said in my mind.

The radio crackled again, "I repeat, a camper is down and severely bleeding. We need emergency assistance on Roller coaster bike trail."

Roller coaster was a minute and a half from where I stood if I ran and I was a trained first responder. "I'm going" I yelled to CB. Allison turned and watched me sprint towards the biker trail.

I don't know if I have ever felt like I ran so slow in my life. "Oh God, please..." I prayed.

.........................................................

Oh Dear, I can't find it anywhere!

2010-07-11T00:09:00.003-05:00

oh my... let's see if I can do my thoughts justice tonight.

Do you ever have the feeling that a part of you has been misplaced? You never bartered it away and you didn't send it to the dry cleaners, you didn't drop it off at goodwill but you also didn't wrap it up as a gift for someone, you didn't let it leave for a play date and you are quite sure you didn't store it with all your memoirs from college... but that part of you is not in its usual place and as you walk through the rooms of your soul, you scratch your head and say "Now where did I put that?"

I have been dusting the corners in my heart and frantically pulling out boxes looking for something... for my mirth. Now please don't misunderstand, my everyday laughter is wrinkled with use and my playful banter often gets pulled down from the shelf. And every so often I pull up the blinds and let my eyes sparkle with glee. But my mirth, my pervasive joy brought forth with a deep rooted delight in those around me as I also courageously enjoy myself-- why its quite out of sorts!

You know, I think I put it in a suitcase as I came home from college and thought to myself, "I'll pull this out and wear it once I have my feet back under me at home and once I feel sure of everyone there." Well what does it even mean for me to be sure of everyone?! Isn't that just a code for neglecting to honor and share God given parts of myself till I am convinced the people around me pose minimal risk? How offensively dull! And yet I have sold myself on that idea and my heart feels heavy and perhaps a tad weary of seriousness because I have relegated myself to a rather serious disposition. I wonder how many of you I have allowed to have a proper handle on the temerarious adventures and absurdities brewing inside me somewhere... I wonder if I have a handle on those things brewing inside me somewhere. But I would like to share those parts of myself and live from those places. And I would like to end my summer having put my mirth to good use and having worn it to several events... oh look, here it is, I found it. You know, it looks better on me than I remember it looking.

PS- I would be delighted to know that you looked up the word temerarious and I freely confess that I looked it up to ensure proper usage ;)

welcome to my world...

2010-07-07T12:47:00.010-05:00

It's overwhelming to write with a billion things in my head, I almost want to try and write about them all at once to play out what goes on in my mind. maybe i'll give it a shot:

I looked at the pictures online, pictures of places to eat and walk and explore, places where people speak a language I can't and take time to enjoy things I miss and I felt that longing, closely akin to the longing to go home and yet radically different as it stems from a desire to leave home, the desire to live larger than myself and risk...

I waded into a sea of pink pillows and fuzzy blankets and dolls in frilly dresses. She sat in the middle, trying to button her favorite dress: a twirly, pink and green flowered sundress. "Why are you wearing that today?"
"Because, it's almost my birfday."
"Alright, well come here and let me comb your hair..."

"I have just made the most epic batch of mac and cheese ever! You have got to come try this," I said, full of a healthy dose of self satisfaction.
"Whatever," he trudged over with the rock band guitar still strung around his back. He paused as he savored the noodles in all their re-hydrated cheese glory. "What... How did you do this?!" he cried. "No seriously, how did you do this?" I smiled as he rapidly consumed the rest of the pot. That's right, I am unashamedly claiming to be an instant mac and cheese master!...

I tried for the umpteenth time to balance on the tether pulled taunt between two trees. I couldn't balance and emotionally process his question at the same time. As I chased after that instant between bouncing on the tether and falling to the ground, I fled the impulse I had to cry. "I'm scared" I confessed, "scared that if we move some of my friendships will disappear." I avoided eye contact, fighting the urge to shut down. "And I don't have anything to turn to inside of myself that assures me that will be ok."....

...as I looked at those pictures, I found myself wondering what stories he will come home with, what he will remember about himself and what new things he will discover in the process. I also remembered an application that has been sitting in a saved file for too long, I pulled it out a began to peruse what I had written, remembering things about myself and ready to finish what i've started, ready to discover new things about myself in that process.

..."when you comb it hurts!" she cried.
"It's ok," I cooed. I'll make your hair like a princess, which one do you want to look like today?"
"Belle," she said matter of factly. Of course, how appropriate. A bow here and a bobby pin there and she was set. Off she went, spinning in front of everyone in the house. "What do you think of me?" she asked, her eyes glittering. And I find myself wanting to ask that question with my life to those who take delight in me: "What do you think of me?"

..."Katy, this mac and cheese tastes weird." I stared into her face and felt like Charlie Brown. "everybody's a critic."

..."Wait, are you laughing at me?"
"No," I smiled, "No, I'm enjoying you."

Running towards an Epic Ending

2010-06-27T22:50:00.008-05:00

"You can run as fast as you want... I'll keep up." At this point, I was willing to say anything just to get him to go running with me.

"As fast as I want?" Steven questioned with a wry smile.

"Yeah, sure. Now will you throw on some tennis shoes, we're going to miss the sunset."

He finally caved and rushed to throw on his running clothes. When he came out, I was stretching. It wasn't going to be a long run but still, I wasn't going to be the one who pulled something. He was ready to go and I cut the stretches sort. We jetted off from the house, taking the long way towards the beach. Steve was eager to display just how fast he could run and I wanted to prove that I could stay with him-- it felt like a massive sprint, driven by pure determination to not fall behind him. After going a few blocks, I felt him slow just a hair and I was grateful, although reluctant to show it: "Are we running slower than you normally do?" I asked, valiantly masking the amount of wind I was sucking in order to breathe. "No, this is about the pace that I usually run when I train for track. Are we running faster than you usually run?"

If I could have inhaled deeply enough to laugh, perhaps a chuckle would have rung out here. Instead I answered with a clipped "yes." Still, I think he could feel that I wouldn't let him slow down for me and I pulled a couple strides ahead, matching his pace and pushing us forward. By now we could see the beach and the beauty of the shoreline drove us forward. We raced for the stairs, descended the hill and came out on the beach, Steve preparing to slow down. "No,no, we've got time. Let's run for the pier," I shouted.

"Run where?" Steven countered.

"On the beach, dork! Or are you afraid of getting your feet wet?" I had gained my second wind and began to splash him as we ran near the water. Steve laughed and began to get excited. "Alright when I say go-"

"No, Steve, no. I'm not gonna play this game!"

"-We'll race to the pier-"

"NOT HAPPENING. I won't do it!"

-"1..."

"Stop counting!"

"2..."

"Shut up!"

"3... GO!"

At "go" he zipped ahead, kicking sand as he cranked up to another gear that I have never felt before in my body. And I ran to follow, laughing at him and falling behind even as I pushed myself to run faster. He lept up on the pier and I shook my head, finding it necessary to hoist myself up a little more slowly. But I wanted to push further, I didn't have that aching feeling of satisfaction yet that comes when you've run long and hard and well. "All the way to the light house, we can do it!"

The sun was continuing to sink as we whizzed in and out of the metal structures which supported the flood way above us, used during high seas. Steve ran to the edge and began to jump along the pieces of cement that jutted out further along the pier. He was running hurtles, except this time the hurtles were the waves 15 feet beneath him that crashed against the cement pieces he raced across. I looked over, feeling his stupidity and laughing as I saw him light up more in the face of the added challenge and heightened risk. We quickly reached the lighthouse and I drew no small amount of satisfaction from Steve's taken aback look as I touched the lighthouse and turned around to keep running. "Where are you going?" he asked.

"Steve! Surely you're not tired," I played.

"Just because I'm not tired doesn't mean I want to keep running," he sullenly replied. I laughed. We ran together back along the beach in the ever sinking sunlight, with the waves rolling in at our feet. As we neared our favorite place to watch the sunset, I was feeling pretty good and issued a final challenge: "Let's run through the sand, up the hill, across, the street and to the playground. Then we'll be done and come back down to watch the sunset."

"Deal," Steve said and off he sped ahead. I made tracks behind him, huffing and puffing up the bear of a sandy hill that apparently I had thought we should run. I was breathing hard and hurting, pushing for the playground where I saw Steven just finishing. I ran up and saw him winded and collapsed next to him, trying to breathe and laugh at the same time. "When did running uphill on dry sand become a good idea?!" he asked with a slight whine in his voice.

"Word!" I said, feeling the thrill of my endorphin high. "I want to say that I kicked that sandy hill's butt... that's not true, it definitely whipped mine." Steve laughed in return and we turned to walk back down to the beach and watch the sunset. The glory of our run merely set the mood for the glory of the scene before us. We sat on the beach and threw off our shoes, allowing Lake Michigan to wash the sweat off our feet and we began to soak in the colors of what turned out to be an incredible evening. It had been a day worth ending well and it was an ending well worth enjoying with Steven.

Elly Belle

2010-06-26T08:11:00.008-05:00

I watched her totter out in front of me. Her feet pitter-pattered on the cement of the pier and I laughed as she excitedly ran out further and further, dangerously close to the edge. Elly had no fear. I kept looking at Dad and still fought the urge to grab her up and protect her from the adventure she wanted. How to let a 3 year old live, fully alive to the risk she loves and still keep her safe?

A couple of days ago, we played in the waves of Lake Michigan. The wind was strong and so the waves were fierce and thrilling. Steven, Dad, and I entered the crash with the little girls, their giggles and sputtering humorously interwoven together. At one point, the little girls and I headed back for the beach and the guys stayed out further. As I played with Libby, making sand castles and chatting with Mom, I noticed Elly entering the water again, headed for Dad. I quickly rose up to walk behind her, she didn't see me and I walked 2 steps behind her in the waves, letting her go forward "alone". Then it came, the wave that was too big and washed her under. She popped up, eyes big, voice panicked, coughing with another wave ready to swallow her. I scooped her up and she latched on, Dad rushed up with Steven as well. We consoled her, letting her know that she needed to walk out with us and not go into the water alone. And then she went out with Dad and the adventure continued, Elly playing in the waves.

I love that girl. I love the way she lives and yet it scares me. And... I think I should be more like her. I want to live confident that my Father will scoop me up when I'm sinking. I want to walk out too far on the pier and crash around in really big waves.