To Reflect: "To Think Deeply or Carefully About."

The Time is Now

2011-02-14T23:10:00.000-08:00

From your skin to your core, let light and love come rushing through the door - the time is now! (I love the rhythms and strings in this song - I went to see Ballet Magnificat! with my mom, dad and Ellie last weekend. They did an awesome dance to this song.)

Merry Christmas, Mr. Potter!

2010-12-04T18:50:00.000-08:00

Christmas time is here

Happiness and cheer

Fun for all that children call

Their favorite time of the year

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Snowflakes in the air

Carols everywhere

Olden times and ancient rhymes

Of love and dreams to share

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Sleigh bells in the air

Beauty everywhere

Yuletide by the fireside

And joyful memories there

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Christmas time is here

We'll be drawing near

Oh, that we could always see

Such spirit through the year

Oh, that we could always see

Such spirit through the year...

So it's Christmastime and I really wish I could say I'm in the Christmas mood, but I don't think I can say that until my Christmas spirit reaches full peak - and for some reason this year, it's not there yet. So, to motivate my Christmas cheer, here is a list of things I LOVE about this time of year.

Thinking about the Incarnation. Mind baffling, humbling and intense love. Thank you, Jesus.

December. It's just a good month. It's cold, but it's a soft cold. Not the pre-winter sloppy cold of September October and November, or the harsh, biting cold of January and February, or the wet, messy cold of March and April. It just seems - quiet.

Right now, the house across the street from my apartment looks like it could be on the cover of a Martha Stewart mag. It has beautiful twinkle lights on its front porch and upstairs balcony, and its age softens it into the landscape of the street. I'm not big on Martha, but this house is downright charming, and it's great to see that every night. Speaking of my street, the houses on it are just great period. They're old, but renovated and alive with character. There are also lots of trees on my street that are blanketed in snow and deepen the charm and attraction of my little street.

Peppermint hot chocolate, Egg Nog, Chai and Chai Nogs. Duh.

All the great Christmas movies (Merry Christmas, Charlie Brown, It's A Wonderful Life, The Grinch, White Christmas, the list goes on.)

The Best Christmas Pageant Ever. Best Christmas book, hands down.

Last but not least - CHRISTMAS MUSIC! The Messiah, All the classic hymns, all the old school stuff we used to listen to with my dad (yes, Amy Grant is included in that list), and all the cheesy Christmas songs it's fun to blast at the top of your lungs (thank you, Mariah Carey.) Speaking of Christmas music, this song is one of my latest favorites that is helping to get me in the snowy, Christmasy mood.

There. Now that I've got all that out, I think I'm feeling more Christmasy already. There are so many other things that could go on that list, but those are the highlights. Merry Christmas season! Only 21 days left...

In the Company of the Archangels...

2010-11-02T20:11:00.001-07:00

I saw a picture of the ocean today. And I wanted to go. I wanted the sand on my feet and the wet salty embrace of the wind on my face. What is so intriguing about the ocean? In the spirit of my longing for the ocean, this is one of my favorite descriptions of the sea, enjoy.

"...on the other side extended a long, curving beach of red cliffs, rising steeply from the pebbled coves. It was a shore that knew the magic and mystery of storm and star. There is a great solitude about such a shore. The woods are never solitary - they are full of whispering, beckoning, friendly life. But the sea is a mighty soul, forever moaning of some great, unshareable sorrow, which shuts it up into itself for all eternity. We can never pierce its infinite mystery - we may only wander, awe and spell-bound, on the outer fringe of it. The woods call to us with a hundred voices, but the sea has one only - a mighty voice that drowns our souls in its majestic music. The woods are human, but the sea is of the company of the archangels."

From Anne's House of Dreams by L.M. Montgomery

Sunsets & Sushi

2010-10-17T14:29:00.000-07:00

Today I was walking through Drake Park. In Bend. Because that's where I live now. Drake Park is right down the street from my apartment. The trees are all turning color and the air was cool, but the sun was warm. It was nice.

And I was reflecting on this --

So this last month or so, I've really been hit by the fact that I'm a sinner. I mean, duh. But seriously - it's been humbling to recognize the grace of God in my life and realize that no matter what I do, or how I mess up, or how disgusted I am with myself, He forgives me and I can live in the freedom of His love. I just don't know what I would do if I didn't have a relationship with Jesus. Even though I neglect Him a lot, I realize that I am constantly comforted by the knowledge of His presence in my life. I love the good things He's provided for me... and the beauty that still surrounds me despite of all the selfish, ugly sin that's there, too. I just feel like His protection and guidance in my life, and the lives of those I love, needs to be recognized. I love Jesus!

Ramblings

2010-09-12T22:46:00.000-07:00

I know what you’re thinking. “Wow, a blog entry from Karen?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?! Um, she’s alive?” Yeah, I am. How’s it going. I have a life. Life. Funny thought. It’s been pretty crazy hectic lately. But, I wanted all you readers (all, like, four of you) to know that I’m moving out of Weed. I thought it was noteworthy. I’m moving to Bend, Oregon to be the Rehab Office Coordinator at St. Charles Medical Center. I’ll also be close to Carla. And Tim and Lydia and Olivia and Caleb. Which definitely makes me happy. However, I will miss writing for the paper. But, with that said, I think it might give me a chance to pour some juices back into my creative writing. I get all ambitious, but seriously. Maybe I’ll submit some stuff to a magazine or write a book or something. You guys would read it, right? So there are four fans already. Done and done.

Okay so about my job. Audrey pretty much got it for me. She recommended me for her old position and then I interviewed and got a call the very next day. I was terrified for the interview, because that’s how I operate. I get SUPER NERVOUS for things, things that should not make people THAT nervous. But I do, I get that nervous. (Poor Carla had to shove me in the hot tub the night before in an effort to make me relax.) Then when I get into the interview, or whatever it is I’m nervous for, I’m usually pretty calm and I just swallow my fear and use my fake confidence to sail through. Anyway, so I felt super relieved after the interview was over, and I was confident I did pretty well. Then when I got the call saying I landed the job, I thought “yay!” for about two seconds before the nerves set in again. And I realized there are many, many changes lying ahead of me. And many "thoughts to think" in the next few weeks as Audrey says. Yikes! But I’m actually thinking I’ll just take it one day at a time. One hour at a time if I have to. I’m looking for a place to live in Bend. It would be pretty sweet to be able to live with Carla, but I don’t know if that’s going to actually play out. If it doesn’t, oh well, it will be nice just to be in the same town at least. And get to know her “booooooyfriend” (as JB affectionately calls him in a mocking tone) better, too.

Next, I’m really going to miss my family and JB. That pretty much nails all I want to say on that topic. It’s just really, really, really true.

I’ve been struggling a bit tonight with the real, raw, desires of my heart. I really wish I knew myself better. I want to be a wife and mom someday, but until that desire actualizes I want to be diligent and responsible and serve God. I think this job is a good way to start, so I’m praying that the Lord will bless it and guide me eventually to something I know I want to do beyond a shadow of a shadowy doubt. I want to get to a spot where I feel like, “yeah, this is it. This is where God wants me and where I want to be and it feels great.” I hope that’s not selfish, because I don’t mean it in that sense. I just want to get to a place where I’m calm and confident and can serve God without questioning if everything is “the right thing.” I want to follow His lead, and trust Him through uncertainty, knowing I can be certain about Him. That last sentence is already pretty true about me, but I want it even more!

So, change is coming – but change is good. I’m moving to Bend and starting a new life. It’s freaky scary. I’ll keep you posted. (And don’t “look at the sky” as my Italian cousin says, I really will.)

Rescue!

2010-03-08T21:27:00.000-08:00

Walking down a trail with my dad, mom and Carla last weekend gave me the opportunity to appreciate the sparkling Deschutes river to our right, the rocky jagged hillside to our left, trees cutting into the blue sky accented by wafting clouds and the sound of rolling, bubbling water. The sun was out but it was chilly. After the exercise warmed us up a bit we shedded our outer layers and carried them around our waists. With our sunglasses on and a healthy flush of color on our cheeks we were enjoying the beautiful day in Bend. We heard children's voices drifting down the trail toward us from the hillside. "Oh, listen to the kids playing. How cute," mom remarked.

As we came nearer to the sound of chatter it began to separate into audible words. One word, actually. A little boy's voice shrieked, "Help! Help!" We sped up and rounded a corner to see a young blonde freckled boy, about seven years old, gripping the edge of a large rock halfway up the hillside, his feet dangling free in a desperate and unsuccessful attempt to find footing. "Hang on!" dad yelled and scrambled up the hillside to rescue this frightened child. Just then, his friend came out from behind a rock and asked with a shocked expression, "Hayden! What happened?!" "Oh, your friend is just a little stuck," dad replied, trying to keep these boys calm. Hayden, from his precarious position, aligned his head with his shoulder in an attempt to see his friend and in a panic he assessed the situation from his perspective. "No! I'm HANGING ON FOR DEAR LIFE!!" Dad quickly reached up, put his hands around him and tightened his grip. Hayden released his grip on the rock's edge and let out all the breath the fear had kept inside. Rushing out of his mouth with the released fear were his thanks. "Thank you, thank you" - gulp, sigh - "Thank you!" Dad set the trembling thankful boy down on a patch of grass and his wide-eyed friend came over. "I told him to follow me, but he said he knew a quicker way." Hayden didn't notice his friend's bragging and I-told-you-so tone of voice, he was just glad to be alive. He caught his breath and thanked dad again. Further down the trail, dad was thanked for his heroism by the boy's mother who was picnicking by the river. "Boy that was an adventure!" Hayden's friend exclaimed. The final word from Hayden was, "I'm through with climbing rocks for a while."

The day was still shining in its brilliance, but this short episode added a significant highlight.

A Five-year-old on Ice Skates – A Story of Determination

2010-02-18T12:20:00.000-08:00

“Will you please come ice skating with me, KK?” JB said as he cocked his gap-model head accented with puppy dog eyes at me. Um, how could I say no to that? My plans of coffee shop lounging/espresso sipping/Internet surfing/job searching flew away like that piece of trash you didn’t mean to let slip out of the car window on the freeway. Woops. So I laced up my five dollar rental skates, prepared to hold this adorable five-year-old’s hand as we glided across the ice together, eventually being able to experience the joy of letting go of the gripping hand to see him find his own feet on the ice – the idea being for him to skate without my help and being able to enjoy the fruit of my labors. Reality check - not going to happen, KK. With strength of mind, JB let me tie his skates on, then headed across the rubber mats to take his first step onto the ice. The poor disillusioned child thought it would be a cinch. On his way to the rink, someone greeted him with a “Hi, JB! How are you?” He didn’t flinch but responded determinedly, “I can’t talk right now, I’m just concentrating.” I followed close behind as the metal blade of his skate met the ice and his idea of how easy this would be began to slip out of his mind, unable to stay in place despite his mental attempts at keeping it there. He flailed like a fish out of water, making desperate attempts to keep himself vertical by holding onto the wall of the rink with one hand, and my hand on the other side. My continuous exhortations to take it slow, to put one foot in front of the other, never made it past his cute little head of silky brown hair. Instead of gently easing his skates forward one at a time, he insisted on jerking them backwards in a fast, repetitive motion, attempting to sprint across the ice. “The faster I go, the steadier I get!” he shouted behind him once, right before his chest and hands caught the weight of his body on the wet ice. He tried holding onto an upside down wastebasket, but because he is tall for his age, skating along at a 90-degree angle didn’t seem to improve his skills much. We tried several methods, but mainly resorted to our wall and hand gripping device. Near the end, I ended up just wrapping my arms around his chest, under his arms, instructing him to keep his feet STILL so he could slide across the ice and just enjoy it. Fortunately, there were several who took pity on my quickly failing plight (and were also, most likely, partly drawn in by JB’s effortless charm that was prominent even in his unsuccessful skating attempts,) and offered to take him for a lap around the rink, or to grab his other hand as a team effort. This, probably unbeknownst to the individual offering, was a half an hour volunteer job. It also consisted of about six or seven lifts of the full weight of this boy decked out in heavy snow clothes with skates on. After about an hour of these trips around the rink, holding onto this slipping and sliding kid, lifting him up and making coaching attempts that were slowly decreasing in frequency, spectators and volunteers began to inquire after my back, to make sure I wasn’t in pain. My back was fine - JB’s tenacity and determination to master this sport seemed to increase my patience. I admired his desire to keep trying. A few times I gently asked him if he wanted to step off the ice for a while, “no! I’m just ready for another trip around, KK,” he would respond. Once he looked up at me endearingly and softly said, “lots of these kids are better than me, huh?” Then, after a long pause, “but practice makes perfect!” He skated away just to fall down again. After the two hours on the rink, JB and I were both ready to step off. I assured him that next time he tried, it wouldn’t seem so foreign and hard. He’s excited to take another stab at it. I love that boy.

I think this experience is analogous to how God looks at me. I feel like in living my life in the attempt of being set apart for God, and in my attempts to increase the closeness of spiritual proximity to Him, I am about as successful as JB on the ice sometimes. But like JB, I don’t want to give up – and God is still holding my hand, constantly picking me up and setting me on my feet again, only His back never gets tired. Sometimes he even has to grab me from behind and gently push me along. But while my patience with JB would eventually run out, His patience with me is infinite. I want my tenacity to remain. I always want to have that desire to step back out onto the slippery ice and try again.

*I realize that in this analogy I compared myself to God. I’m not entirely sure of the ethics of that, but I think it’s OK in this case.

The Christian's Comfort

2010-02-09T22:59:00.000-08:00

I found this on a little note card in my Aunt Carmen’s bible today during a visit. Uncle Aldo was talking about John 5:24, how it’s his favorite verse in the whole Bible. When I asked him what it said, he leaned over, looked at me intently and quoted, “Most assuredly, I say to you, he who hears My word and believes in Him who sent Me has everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death into life.” Then he sighed and said, “That pretty much sums it up, doesn’t it?” They are devoted Catholics and have been their whole lives, but in recent years it’s as if they just discovered the Bible. It’s so great. Uncle Aldo said he never thought about it much before, but now they study it regularly. Aunt Carmen wanted to show me her Bible, so while I was flipping through it, this piece of paper fell out and I thought it was beautiful.

The Christian’s Comfort
(Extract from a letter by Dr. James DeKoven, written just before his death, to a friend in affliction, March, 1879)
The Christian’s comfort in sorrow is to be found, not in the memory, but in the presence of the one we love. The Christian is in Christ; the departed loved one is in Christ, too, only nearer to Him than we on earth. One is on this side of the veil, the other on that. By coming nearer to Christ the living and the dead come nearer to each other in Him, not in any physical manner by sight or sound or touch – that would be only to restore what is most imperfect and what death was meant to end – but in the deep, hidden bonds that bind the souls of them that love Him together in our Lord Jesus Christ.

Thus, prayers and good works and Holy Communion and the personal love of Jesus, become the comfort of one that sorrows, not because they make one forget or benumb one’s feelings, but because through them the soul is being drawn nearer to Christ.

Thus there becomes a deep meaning in the benediction, “Blessed are they that mourn."

Cursed by the Cursor, Sometimes

2010-02-08T20:35:00.000-08:00

When I type, my fingers usually move faster than my brain, pushing the cursor forward at a speed I can’t keep up with mentally. This equals too much time staring at the blinking cursor, which is a sight I loathe. That little propeller of my thoughts, expressions and well thought-out research findings (wink) should be moving, moving, moving, not running in place. When I write in my composition notebook that is covered with colorful cutouts from my favorite magazines, my brain moves much faster than my pen. Somehow, once that thin blue ink begins stroking the paper, I suddenly realize my hand will ache if I try to get it all written by hand. The thoughts and ideas jumble up in my brain, I feel unorganized and sometimes I even, give up. If, however, tenacity prevails, I usually use this method: jot down notes, then resort to my little white friendly Macintosh to chug out the finished product, even if it inevitably means staring at the palpitating cursor. That’s what happened here. I’ve needed to write for a while – I know that. There has been a dry spell; I’ve been uninspired (thanks to Debbie G. for mentioning it and sort of kicking me into action). So today I sat down with my chubby composition notebook and wrote some notes, then I unfolded my laptop and it turned into a blog. It feels good.

I’ve been out of college since June. After that I worked on my senior project - more like fought with it and lost, because I made little progress. Then I traveled across the Atlantic to live in Bosnia for a month. When I returned home, I buckled down and chugged out my senior project like serious business. That was done and it felt, and still feels, good. By the way, I rocked that project. 38 pages of well presented, thoroughly researched information. Not to brag or anything. Then there was Thanksgiving and Christmas where I squeezed the last drop of enjoyment out of the luxury of no work and no homework. In January I turned serious about this job-hunting business. Aaaaand, nothing yet. I found out that’s okay, though. I mean, for now. Upon reflection of my time at home after college, I’ve been enlightened in a few areas. Let’s start with – life at home is a full time job. Even without a job, and no school, I am constantly busy. It’s a mystery. I could list all the things I do every day, but when I actually materialize them into words, somehow they lose their significance and legitimacy. Trust me though, they’re important, and they keep me from losing my mind from boredom. Next enlightenment? I love being an adult, but I don’t like being a grown up all the time. (Yes, I realize grown-ups don’t exist – see my past blog post – but I don’t know of a better term for the meaning I’m trying to convey.) Sometimes when I hang out with my sisters or cousins I feel like a kid – and I love it. Wrestling, fighting over silly things and blaring music in the kitchen while we do the dishes isn’t exactly grown-up behavior… is it? It’s great though, because I don’t care. I know I’m an adult, and I can fall back on that fact whenever I need. It’s like the best of both worlds. I think I can accurately call myself a content person. Aside from the occasional rash outburst of emotion and “get me out of here!” mentalities, I’m content here at home until something better comes along. I’ve had time to read, which is great and has clarified the fact that I’m not as well read as I want to be. Lately I picked up a book of short stories and have read authors like Edgar Allan Poe, James Joyce, William Faulkner and Jean-Paul Sartre. They’re so good and interesting! I’m excited to read more of these authors now that my appetite has been wet for them. I’ve also had time to spend with JB, which only solidifies my desire to someday be a mom. I love kids, and when they love you back it’s just irreplaceable. There are plenty of things to make me content while living at home again. It might be cliché to say (it’s even cliché to say it’s cliché – Pam from The Office taught me that), but I want to enjoy the now. Someday my here will become my there, then I might want my here back again. Tonight, propped up on my cozy bed with plans to go make a cup of tea, listening to Greg Laswell and blogging for the first time in a while, I’m content.

Also – when I moved back into the house with four other people, it quickly became obvious that people have too much STUFF. I think that’s enough said on that topic, and if not I’m saving it for the next post.

ORGANIZE my thoughts? Have you gone mental?

2009-11-17T09:57:00.000-08:00

OK, so here's the deal. I've been bursting at the seams to write lately, but when I seriously focus my mental energy on it, nothing appears in my mind's eye. There are no topics floating around in my pool of ideas. My pool has been drained, there are dead leaves and branches, little by little, filling the dry cracked concrete. My pool wishes for summer and to be filled with refreshing, cool water - a breeding ground and welcoming place for ideas.

See, just like that... what is that? "My pool?" That's rubbish, or is it? I could work with that, write a metaphorical piece about writer's block, etc. Yeah, right.

It's weird, but the thing occupying most of my mind recently has been my hefty research paper and organizing my stuff. Probably because that's what I've been doing. Researching, writing and organizing. So I guess it's not that weird. The thing that spurred me to organize my stuff, I think, (besides my mom's sweet, persistent nagging) is the fact that the contents of my mind are so cluttered. Maybe it's easier for me to approach the file-drawer-turned-upside-down that is my brain when I'm sitting in a clean room that smells of glade scented candles, where everything is neatly folded and put in the right drawer. Dressy shoes have to be in the shoetree, boots on the left side of the closet, flip-flops on the right, please. The third drawer down is for t-shirts only, Ellie, please don't mix them up again. (Ellie complies because she knows this, organized phase, too shall pass.) Don't get me wrong, I can live with clutter. The unorganized accumulation of too much stuff is a well-practiced hobby of mine. When every faculty of mine encounters clutter, though, my mind says, eh, uh, no. Clean at least one of these things up, or I will go crazy. So my mind is happy to focus on cleaning out my dresser, closet, boxes and bags of stuff for a day or two. I'm content to ponder how many different ways my furniture can be arranged, letting my entire consciousness be taken up by deciding if putting the bookshelf next to the bed is the most efficient use of space. It's good and productive on one hand, and an escape of sorts on the other hand. I'd rather have mental clutter than physical, though, especially in regard to my writing. When someone says, "I just need to organize my thoughts," I think, "What? Uh... organize your...? Um, do people, can people really...? Is that even possible? Organize your thoughts? Are you crazy?" A book I just began reading, entitled, "Bird by Bird" by Anne Lamott addresses this issue in regard to perfectionism in writing, which I equate to complete and total organization of the mind. She says, "Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor, the enemy of the people. It will keep you cramped and insane your whole life, and it is the main obstacle between you and your [really terrible] first draft. [...] Perfectionism will ruin your writing, blocking inventiveness and playfulness and life force. [...] Perfectionism means that you try desperately not to leave so much mess to clean up. But clutter and mess show us that life is being lived. Clutter is wonderfully fertile ground - you can still discover new treasures under all those piles, clean things up, edit things out, fix things, get a grip. Tidiness suggests that something is as good as it's going to get. Tidiness makes me think of held breath, of suspended animation, while writing needs to breathe and move."
Maybe that's why I wait so long to organize my stuff, because I'm a perfectionist. If I can't do it right, I won't do it at all, just like I feel sometimes with writing.

Bottom line, I'm glad my room is clean right now, but there's no way it's going to stay that way. I will let it get to a point where I will once again have to choose one area of my life to be sorted, and my stuff is the easiest to get a grip on, so that's what usually ends up being cyclically organized. In regard to writing, I know I write better when I write first, organize later. Hopefully I can always remember that and just plunge into the mess.

Follow the (Red) Light

2009-10-22T22:18:00.000-07:00

I left the house this morning with the battery warning light on in my car. I stared at the glowing red symbol and thought, “you don’t matter.” It stared back and said, “you’ll be sorry,” as I struggled to pull my common sense back to my side of the argument. My battery light had been flickering on and off for days. I had my battery tested and its function was normal. I was on my way to Medford for a doctor’s appointment. It was 7am. I had my coffee, my tunes, and my paper-clipped bundle of coupons for Costco from my mom. I was ready to check off my Medford to-do list as fast as I could: get in, get done and get out.
As I was heading over the pass, listening intently to a comedy sketch by Jerry Seinfeld on my iPod, Jerry’s voice suddenly plummeted – it sounded like it was being sucked through a vortex – then silence. I thought my speakers went out… how annoying. The red battery light (Yes it was still on. I know. Idiot was slowly being etched across my forehead.) shone on unflinchingly, taunting me with its sarcasm: “It’s your speakers. Right.”
When my car did a few awkward lunges through road construction before Ashland, I decided to pull over, rolling my eyes that I was conceding to a battery light! I left my car running and made a few phone calls, trying to scrounge up a ride, but I only reached my cousin in Ashland who offered me her… bike? No thanks. My gearshift was locked and that little red light was still blaring, brighter than any red light should be allowed to blare. Then, somehow, the menacing light blinked off and my car shifted into gear! With caution I pulled out and drove on old Highway 99 to Medford. I made it to my appointment, a little late, and eventually to Central point to get my alternator fixed. Somehow I felt a little triumphant that the red light telling me the battery was dying wasn’t 100% accurate. Turns out the alternator was draining my car battery while it was running, but the battery itself is as healthy as a horse.
So besides being late for my doctor’s appointment and having to wait an hour and a half at an old fashioned burger place in Central Point - where I eavesdropped on two strangers debating politics through a cheap glass partition adorned with ghastly orange and yellow spiral shaped illustrations of citrus slices - I really was inconvenienced very little.
I headed to Costco to take advantage of the coupons and then headed home, pretty much stress free. There are three morals to this tale:
#1 – Things generally seem worse than they actually are.
#2 – Pay attention to your car’s warning lights.
#3 – It’s pretty stupid to have psychological arguments with inanimate objects. (They usually win.)

Love Weed, Love God

2009-10-19T23:58:00.000-07:00

Weed.
It's an interesting topic for so many reasons. Oh, and I wasn't even counting the ones involving marijuana, (or cannibas if you're reading a police report, but who am I kidding? Who reads police reports besides journalists who then translate it back to marijuana so Joe sixth grader - who probably smokes dope - can understand? Those were two very pointless sentences, but I don't think I wanted to delete them.) so the reasons probably just at least tripled.
I bet you can't guess what my reason for writing about Weed is though. Well, besides the fact that I grew up here, love it here, hate it here, left here and now am back here. It's none of those. Today Weed, just the thought of this place, turned my mind toward the amazing love I experience from God all the time, even if it's not recognized by me. (Bet you didn't see that one coming.)
My mind has been storing and filing away tid bits of information about God's love lately, through different experiences, thoughts and encounters, but tonight as I drove home from the high school where I was working on my senior project and stressing about it, I suddenly observed the sad little town I was driving through. I don't think the drizzling rain really helped uplift my mood, either. That thought started a chain reaction in my mind, like dominoes or ripples or any other word picture you can think of. (And I'm pretty sure there are more.) I thought about how so many people I know here are depressed and down on their luck, or beating themselves up about things they've done or mistakes they've made. I thought about the gutter of the same depressing routine people get themselves into here. I thought how it's kind of adding insult to inury that on top of all their other problems, they live in Weed.
When your mind is on this type of track, Weed honestly doesn't have much to offer, except the new bar on Main Street. What a significant improvement to our little space of cohabitation. I'm sure Papa's Place and the bar in the bowling alley weren't enough for our expansive downtown street. The array of lit beer signs in the window really add something to the street at night.
Back to my chain reaction of thoughts, though. Thinking about other people's unfortunate situations naturally turned my mind to my own situation. I've felt kind of stressed out and hopeless lately, which I mark as things I most likely have in common with the unfortunates of my mind during this whole thought process.
Then, it was like this little light turned on in my head. God loves me, even if I'm stressed out and am only seeing things with a bleak perspective. He loves me A LOT. Then I said a little prayer of thanks to God that I am aware of His love for me. Some of the people in my mind are not aware of it, or at least they are choosing to go through life without taking advantage of it, or comfort in it. It seemed quite perfect, and probably was the cause of the light bulb turning on in my head, that The David Crowder Band's song "How He Loves Us" from their new album was on. It took on a deeper meaning for me. Then it didn't matter that it was cold and drizzly outside.
There's a line in "How He Loves Us" that says, "And I don't have time to maintain these regrets when I think about how He loves us." Chris Tomlin says, "You see the depths of my heart and You love me the same." Pastor Bill says, "God knows what you've done and He loves you anyway." Isaiah 57:18 says, "I have seen his ways and will heal him. I will also lead you and restore comforts to him and his mourners." Romans 5:5 remedies my thoughts of hopelessness, "Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us all."
Weed needs to acknowlege this love much, much more. I need to show this love to Weed much, much more while I'm here. The reciprocation for this kind of love should be to love back. Weed provides a perfect opportunity for me to do this. Love for God = love for others. John 4:19, "We love Him because He first loved us."
Two moments that were precursers to this illumination, some of the tid bits of information I filed away, were in observing God's creation. First when I rounded a corner on the road and my windshield was filled with the exploding scenery of trees in full fall color and the mountain barely dusted with snow against a pure blue sky. Second, when I stepped out of my car the other night and tilted my head toward the sky - smooth black pierced with pinpricks of glowing, sparkling white. There is definitely something about the stars in Edgewood. (Edgewood has one up on Weed in this area for sure. Don't believe me? You're welcome to visit.)
Isaiah 40:26, "Lift up your eyes on high, and see who has created these things, who brings out their host by number. He calls them all by name, by the greatness of His might and the strength of His power not one is missing."
It's very easy to forget but so essential to remember: God loves me. It enables us to rise up, press on, serve and worship Him better. It's better than anything. Ever.

PS - I am very proud of myself that I didn't mention A.W. Tozer at all in this post. Just saying. It had the potential to be much longer, but stop yawning - I'm done.

Flames Divide, Cedars Split

2009-10-13T10:16:00.000-07:00

When I was at Capernwray Hall we had a mandatory day of prayer. Of course they couldn’t enforce us to pray but the idea was that we would spend the entire day alone with God. I remember Trevor encouraging us to spend some of our time listening to God. When he said that, I cringed internally because:

This has always been one of the hardest things for me to grasp and take seriously as a Christian – hearing God. I don’t mean to, and it’s not like I don’t attribute validity to what people mean when they say things like, God told me to go here or do that or say this… but I tend to close off somewhat to statements of that nature. There may be a tinge of unbelief in me, or sometimes a bit of resentment that it doesn’t come as easily recognizable to me. Deep down I think some people are too loose with the term "God told me to." I'm trying to figure out how I can be such a devout (at least I like to think I’m devout) Christian and be so unfamiliar with the Voice of God. It’s a little disconcerting. I think because God is so other than me that it’s hard to grasp how He can speak to me. Communication in the other direction doesn’t cause a problem for me, though. Being able to talk to the God who created me, loves me and deserves my unending praise is awesome. When He wants to respond to my prayers, though? Wait… what? Um… how do I hear it? How do I know for sure that’s what He’s saying? (That’s where faith comes in, which is another whole topic in itself, but extremely related.)

The POWER alone associated with the voice of God is mind-boggling. Psalm 33:6 says, “By the word of the Lord the heavens were made and all the host of them by the breath of His mouth.” Verse 9 says, “For He spoke and it was done. He commanded and it stood fast.” All throughout Genesis 1 it’s seen: “Then God said… and it was so.” Psalm 29 (one of my absolute favorite Psalms) speaks about the power of God’s voice (read it!!).

I’m reading “The Pursuit of God” by A.W. Tozer right now, and frankly, I could probably write lengthy posts about each chapter in that book... (as you can see from my previous post, haha) but I’ll try to not do that. I encourage you to read it if you haven’t already. The chapter I just read is entitled “The Speaking Voice,” go figure. It seriously convicted me that I need to focus so much more of my prayer and devotion time on disciplining my ability to listen to God.

If you thought you were going to get through this post without a quote from Tozer, haha. Too bad. Or just stop reading now. But actually don’t, because Tozer is so much better to read than me. One of the fundamental things regarding the Voice of God that helps me understand this whole concept is that the Bible is God’s word (and consequently voice) in my life. Tozer says, (here comes the quote!)

“A man may say, ‘These words are addressed to me,’ and yet in his heart not feel
and know that they are. […] The Bible is the inevitable outcome of God’s
continuous speech. It is the infallible declaration of His mind for us put into
our familiar human words. I think a new world will arise out of the religious
mists when we approach the Bible with the idea that it is not only a book which
was once spoken, but a book which is now speaking. The prophets habitually said,
‘Thus saith the LORD.’ They meant their hearers to understand that God’s
speaking is in the continuous present. We may use the past tense properly to
indicate that at a certain time a certain word of God was spoken but a word of
God once spoken continues to be spoken, as a child once born continues to be
alive, or a world once created continues to exist. And those are but imperfect
illustrations, for children die and worlds burn out, but the Word of our God
endureth forever.”

I don’t think I have been ignoring the voice of God in my life. I think I’ve just perhaps been scraping by with the bare minimum of listening to God. Of course a relationship has to have two way communication, so to grow even closer to the God I love, I have to increase my awareness of His voice by disciplining my hearing skills to be sharper.

“Come at once to the open Bible expecting it to speak to you. Do not come with
the notion that it is a thing which you may push around at your convenience.
It is more than a thing; it is a voice, a word, the very Word of the living
God.” –Tozer

That mindset is vital to hearing God’s voice in my life! Like Tozer I want to pray that I will get used to the sound of God’s voice, that its tones may be familiar when the sounds of the earth die away and the only sound will be the music of His speaking voice.

Oh Taste and See that the Lord is Good Psalm 34:8

2009-09-18T02:33:00.000-07:00

I am aware that there are those who love to poke fun at the plain man's idea of reality. They are the idealists who spin endless proofs that nothing is real outside of the mind. They are the relativists who like to show that there are no fixed points in the universe from which we can measure anything. They smile down upon us from their lofty intellectual peaks and settle us to their own satisfaction by fastening upon us the reproachful term "absolutist." The Christian is not put out of countenance by this show of contempt. He can smile right back at them, for he knows that there is only One who is Absolute, that is God. But he knows also that the Absolute One has made this world for man's use, and while there is nothing fixed or real in the last meaning of the words (the meaning as applied to God), for every purpose of human life we are permitted to act as if there were. And every man does act thus except the mentally sick. These unfortunates also have trouble with reality, but they are consistent; they insist upon living in accordance with their ideas of things. They are honest, and it is their very honesty which constitutes them a social problem.

The idealists and relativists are not mentally sick. They prove their soundness by living their lives according to the very notions of reality which they in theory repudiate and by counting upon the very fixed points which they prove are not there. They could earn a lot more respect for their notions if they were willing to live by them; but this they are careful not to do. Their ideas are brain-deep, not life-deep. Wherever life touches them they repudiate their theories and live like other men.

The Christian is too sincere to play with ideas for their own sake. He takes no pleasure in the mere spinning of gossamer webs for display. All his beliefs are practical. They are geared into his life. By them he lives or dies, stands or falls for this world and for all time to come. From the insincere man he turns away. The sincere, plain man knows that the world is real. He finds it here when he wakes to consciousness, and he knows that he did not think it into being. It was here waiting for him when he came, and he knows that when he prepares to leave this earthly scene it will be here still to bid him goodbye as he departs. By the deep wisdom of life he is wiser than a thousand men who doubt. He stands upon the earth and feels the wind and rain in his face, and he knows that they are real. He sees the sun by day and the stars by night. He sees the hot lightning play out of the dark thundercloud. He hears the sounds of nature and the cries of human joy and pain. These he knows are real. He lies down on the cool earth at night and has no fear that it will prove illusory or fail him while he sleeps. In the morning the firm ground will be under him, the blue sky above him and the rocks and trees around him as when he closed his eyes the night before. So he lives and rejoices in a world of reality. With his five senses he engages this real world. All things necessary to his physical existence he apprehends by the faculties with which he has been equipped by the God who created him and placed him in such a world as this. Now by our definition also God is real. He is real in the absolute and final sense that nothing else is. All other reality is contingent upon His.

- A.W. Tozer, The Pursuit of God (from Ch. 4: Apprehending God)

9/14/09

2009-09-14T00:47:00.000-07:00

Sorry it's been a while since my last post. It's a challenge for me to sift through all that's happening and process it enough to write about it. I've been journaling, but even that is scattered, so my efforts usually consist of making sense of my journal entries enough to string them together into a cohesive post. Here are some experiences that stick out enough to write about for now.

Last week Jo had to mow her lawn and her neighbor’s lawn as well. When I came home from walking around the piacja with another woman who works at the Hope Center, I met her in the neighbor’s yard. (Or garden if you’re British. Funny side note – I’m beginning to pick up British terms again living with Jo. Just small things, but I find I’m falling into it quite easily. For instance, saying things like “rubbish,” “this bit,” “tip it into the sink,” “chuck it into the bin,” “can I help with the washing up?” etc.) Jo told me to hang out with the Bosnians while she mowed. What that consisted of was literally following her around while she cut the grass. We stood at a very close proximity and just watched Jo work. Every once in a while the Bosnians would point out a bit that she missed, but for the most part, we just observed, the entire time. When she finished their garden, we moved on to another neighbor’s – she had come out of her house and shouted across the fence for Jo to mow hers as well. So we all trooped down another lane to watch Jo mow that lawn. It was interesting keeping the Bosnians company because I don’t speak Bosnian (although I am learning a bit – two classes a week, it’s a hard language!). I do a considerable amount of smiling and nodding. It was so intriguing to me that everybody just kept joining us after we mowed their lawn and we clustered around Jo while she worked. They served us coffee and juice (they drink so much juice over here!) and they kept handing me fresh apples and grapes that they were picking off their trees and vines. They gave me a chair to sit in, and when I would try to say I didn’t need it, they would just keep saying sjediti, sjediti! (That means “sit, sit!”) When Jo would round the corner, they would pick my chair up and move it so I could view Jo working at all times. Heaven forbid I miss a millisecond of what she was doing.

A few days ago, as part of the potato project here (click HERE to read about it!), we took a trip out to "The Village" to pick up some potatoes. We drove four about 45 minutes down a lush, forested mountain road. When we arrived, I was taken away by the beauty. It felt as if we were stepping back in time. The house we went to was rustic and simple, made of brick. We were invited in for coffee (Amila makes the best!!) We sat around for an hour and sipped our coffee and visited. Later, out of their tiny kitchen, Amila and her mother revealed one of the best meals I think I've ever eaten. You would hardly know they were cooking, they were up and down so little, and when the pulled the pans out of the kitchen and set them on the table, I was puzzled at where it came from. However, I quickly stopped wondering because my admiration of what was set in front of me overcame any inquiry as to its creation. I was looking at fresh baked bread (sweet bread with plenty of air pockets, yet dense and crusty on the outside), potatoes picked fresh from the garden that morning, boiled then baked unti lcrispy with a little salt. Roasted peppers also fresh from the garden, served with cheese cream (nothing like we have in the States, it's sweet and sort of the texture of sour cream, but thicker.) Salad, which consisted of fresh bell peppers, onions and tomatoes chopped - no dressing, just salt, - sausage roasted in the oven with mustard and cheese cream. We all grabbed forks and dug in. We used plates, but the Bosnians didn't. They just ate from the pans, I loved it. We washed the whole meal down with fizzy water. After we were stuffed a little past the point of contentment, we went outside into the misty air and hiked up into the hills for a ways. We sought out a trickling waterfall where the ground produces a silver clay that makes your hands extremely soft... it was a bit treacherous climbing down there, but it was worth it to feel the ground. Amila carried a pick with her to dig up a bunch and take it back with us. The scenery was gorgeous and it was so refreshing to be out in the cool air when it was raining a bit here and there. Later we piled the potatoes in our van and drove back along the narrow bumpy road. It was a good day.

9/6/09

2009-09-06T10:36:00.000-07:00

Now that I've been in Goražde for a few days, it feels like I know more about what's going on. That's such a "duh" statement, but it's the only way I can think to describe what's going on in my head. This trip is changing my traditional ideas of sharing the Gospel. The Reitz's have been here for eight years, and they've been able to share their faith with people, and witness to them, a little but they have yet to actually lead somebody to the Lord. The community here is 99% Muslim, and in talking to Jo a bit, I can sense a feeling of discouragement and bewilderment at times at the long process involved in sharing Jesus' love with the people of Bosnia. However, the perseverance of the people in ministry here is encouraging and challenging to me.

So far what we've been doing is extremely practical and relational. Last night Jo and I went to coffee at her neighbor Amila's house. Everything is so community oriented. We came home, Amila was in her garden and asked if we wanted to have a coffee later. After about an hour, she called up through the window, "Jo! Coffee! Come on!" So we walked over to her house. The roads here are like alleys in America. They are so small, it feels like you're crossing a little driveway to get to the house across the street. We sat outside and had coffee. Bosnian coffee is a lot like the coffee I had in Italy. They drink it out of small cups, and it's strong - they put sugar in it normally. It was absolutely delicious. I felt very welcome, even though I can't speak the language. Jo translated for me, but her Bosnian isn't fluent at all, so I think there were a few things lost in translation. Izmet (sp? Maybe it's Yzmet, not sure...), Amila's father in law, was separating dried beans from the chaff, so we helped him sift and blow the chaff away and put the beautifully colored beans in a big red bowl. It was neat to be able to help even though I couldn't communicate with him at all.

It is really cool to see the people in ministry here building relationships with this community. I can tell they are very well liked and accepted here. Please continue to pray for this ministry as I believe it is a slow, but effective process!

Should Jet Lag Be Cured? Probably Not.

2009-09-02T09:41:00.000-07:00

So I'm flying from Medford to SF and I read this article in the InFlight magazine. (Yeah, I totally read those.) I liked what this guy had to say and wanted to share. Plus I'm feeling quite jet-laggy myself at the moment, being in Germany and all after an 11 hour flight, so I'm pepping myself up!

"You can forget what day it is even without a passport. And why do we insist on blaming the flying itself? Sit me upright in an easy chair for 13 hours, replay the Bourne trilogy three times, ply me with gin-and-tonics and let me doze off with my chin tucked into my clavicle... I'm pretty sure I'd wake up feeling weird without ever leaving my living room. [...] This, it seems to me, is one of the profound gifts of being alive now: the ability to get up and go everywhere, to experience the world in a kind of rush that previous generations couldn't have dreamed of. We should savor that rush. We should savor it the way a dog sticks his head out a car window and feels the wind in his face. A sense of dislocation comes with the territory. Indeed, it's part of the fun. [...] The world is big and it should wear us out trying to take it all in. [...] We should be dizzy with awe that these planes deliver us to faraway places, and at the wonders we find there. [...] A little sleepiness, a touch of bewilderment, is nothing more or less than a normal, rational, authentic response to the still-astonishing fact of being flown around the world. We don't need a cure for jet lag. We need a nap."

More about my trip later! (Maybe when I work off the jet lag!)

Grown-ups Don't Exist

2009-07-25T14:58:00.000-07:00

You can't predict what's going to make you feel grown up. Graduation? Maybe. Paying bills? There's an element of adulthood in that. Watching your grandparents pass away? It's sobering. All these things added to the moment I had my epiphany. The instant in which a flood of knowing washed over me that I was, for better or worse, ready or not, grown up. It was the instant I knew I would never stop growing. I've always had a little trouble with the phrase "grown up." After all, my ears and nose never stop growing, why should I? Naturally I want my physical, mental, emotional and spiritual health to be in proportion with each other. It would be a shame for my ears and nose to outgrow all those elements of my health. People might say, "there goes that immature girl with really big ears." My motto is: grow until you die.

Recently I graduated from college and moved out of my apartment. As I watched my dad pack boxes, bags, bikes and laundry baskets full of my stuff into my tiny little Honda Accord, all with a Mary Poppins-like magic about him, it hit me. When will I not need dad's help jamming large things into tiny spaces or need his council when boys are just plain jerks? When will I not need to ask mom how to get a stain out or how much of her secret ingredient she puts in her spaghetti sauce, or to hold my hand and pray with me? When will I not need to call my big sister for advice or boss my little sisters around? I hope that day never comes. (My little sisters might feel different, however.)

Among the many moments that step me little by little out of childhood and are slowly leading me into adulthood, there are a few that stand out as leaps more than steps. The night my grandmother passed away was one of the giants. In my room all alone away at college, I waited for the call. Every time my family called I dreaded the news and had to force myself to pick up. My roommates weren't home, the house was quiet except for my neighbors in the backyard I could look down into from my upstairs window. Their kids were playing in the tree house and they sounded so happy. It was getting late. I don't remember what time it was exactly because the last thing on my mind was the clock. The lights from my neighbors' backyard were casting a pleasant glow into the dimness of my room as the night sky grew darker, but my mood was anything but pleasant. I was numb. Finally my sister's well known ring tone broke the muffled sound of laughter and chatter below me. Somehow, before I picked up, I knew. I sat down on my bed and unfolded my phone. "Ellie?" In between choked down sobs I heard, "Karen, it's happening. Do you want to talk to grandma?" I didn't want to because I didn't know what to say over the phone to a person who is taking their final breaths... but how could I say no? "Sure" I said, stunned. She put the phone up to Grandma's ear and I told her I loved her very much. That's all I could think to say, or get out of my mouth. After a while Ellie told me quietly that grandma was gone. When I hung up the phone, I laid down on my bed, my body curled up in the corner against the wall. Loneliness is all I felt. A few tears rolled down my cheeks, but after some time passed I stood up and got to work. I had to unpack that duffle bag that had been sitting unzipped on my floor for, well let's just say too long. I had to put my pajamas on and finish an assignment for class in the morning. I still had life to face, and no one was around to do it for me.

Moments like these don't only happen to grown-ups. When I have to change a flat tire, fix a broken pipe, call and hassle the landlord, advise my sisters on matters of the heart, listen to close friends whose kids are struggling with health problems or confront boys who don't know how to treat girls, I don't think: now I'm grown up. Life will always be full of those moments. The day I first re-used a piece of tinfoil instead of mindlessly tossing it in the garbage, I noted a growing similarity to my grandmother. And the day I brushed the crumbs from a sandwich off a relatively sturdy paper plate, in order to reuse the plate later on, I felt as if I was propelling toward the likeness of my grandmother at an alarming rate. That didn't stop my frugal actions, however. I don't mind one bit being like my mother and grandmother, but I know I have a long way to go, just like they still have a long way to go in emulating their mothers and grandmothers. So you see, grown-ups don't exist. To those who think grown-ups do exist, and that they are one of them, probably have the most growing to do out of anyone.

The next time I find myself doing something resembling maturity or the wisdom of age, I will embrace it as part of my lifelong journey of growing. I better call the doctor to change my appointment, take my pills and change my oil.

Click. Drool. Repeat.

2009-06-02T23:28:00.000-07:00

Disclaimer: I don't condone the name of this website. But...I think my calling might be to channel my creativity into creating luscious, gourmet food, then take amazing photographs of the alluring masterpieces. You never know. Check it out - you might never stop.

My future calling?

This is just a teaser...

Lately

2009-05-29T00:00:00.000-07:00

I've been having trouble getting to sleep at a reasonable hour. Usually when that happens, I write my best blog posts. However, I've been going through kind of a dry spell when it comes to my blog. Tonight I decided to just write, though. I usually think I have to have something clever or artistic to say when I post. I guess that's not true, so I think I'll just update you on my life.

I'm almost done with my career as an undergraduate at Cal Poly. That's exciting. I feel like I've said that so often though that it's lost a bit of its actual excitement. I have a lot (that's no exaggeration) of work to do these next two weeks until I'm done. Then I will don my cap and gown and sit with thousands of other graduates on a lawn in the heat of the morning and listen to speeches of praise for our success as students, and about our responsibility as educated adults. Then I will eat some cake, go out to dinner with my family, and breathe a sigh of relief that it's over. In addition to my immediate family, my aunt and uncle are coming from Weed, Randy is coming from LA and Heidi is coming from Sacramento... I think Riley might come too, I hope she does! I wanted to go camping after graduation, but I think it might be too much to move out of my apartment and pack to go camping all in one short weekend.

I'm really going to miss 1731 Santa Rosa St. Apt. C. I'm going to miss walking to Farmer's Market, or to Baja Fresh or Firestone when I'm too tired to cook, or to Uptown to study... or riding the 5 to school every day. I think I will miss Cal Poly, eventually, but I'm really ready to be done being a student.

I'm really looking forward to Bosnia, and doing a good job right now of pushing aside any nerves that accompany my thoughts toward that trip. I'm excited to drink their coffee, get to know the locals, and spend time with Jo. I'm excited to see the Adriatic sea, and plant potatoes.

After Bosnia, who knows where I'll be? I thought possibly Portland, but I'm not so sure about that, now. I'm not ruling it out, though. Sometimes I think I want to just break what seems to be the trend and go somewhere outside of the Pacific Northwest, like Chicago or New York or Colorado or...

I'm glad I have plans for the next 5 or 6 months after I graduate, but I am really looking forward to seeing where I'm at at the close of those months. I saw Tim and Autie in San Francisco last weekend, and after spending time (not long enough, though) with them I was thinking: It's crazy where all of us who were in that tight-knit group of friends are now, years later, and it's fun to see.

Here's to the upcoming years, it's an exciting time of life with a lot of changes... bring it on.

Blogger Goggles

2009-05-16T01:05:00.000-07:00

Google Labs in gmail is genius - except I need this specific feature for my blog. That's not to say I haven't sent emails I regret the next morning, though more lately my trouble is with blogs. I always say, "don't wear your heart on your facebook page (or blog in my case)." Simple math could potentially help with that.

Football, The Hospital and My Mother

2009-05-09T21:09:00.000-07:00

I felt the sharp rush of air cut into my lungs with each inhale and watched the cloudy puff hover in the clear night sky with each exhale. The feel of the ice-like bleacher was creeping through the Mexican blanket that was spread across the cold metal. The stars sparkled above the bright lights that lit the field. I watched my dad pace the sidelines in his khaki shorts and kelly green windbreaker that was puffed out from his quick movements up and down the soggy lawn torn from football cleats. Besides my surroundings, my memories of that night are somewhat dim. I remember feeling sick. I remember feeling cold. I remember complaining to my mom about feeling sick and cold. My mom was very comforting, but also being a good wife supporting her husband as he coached the Weed Cougars. She gave me a some cash and told me to go to the concession stand and buy some hot chocolate. Naturally, the exercise would warm me up, as well as the hot beverage. She told me I could also buy some 7Up if I felt nauseated, which I did, so I ended up buying a cup of hot chocolate, a can of 7Up and a Snickers bar. Why the Snickers? Because I had left over money, and I was six... and I was hungry. I felt stiff, and I had to go to the bathroom. I was so cold... and thirsty. I reached the bleachers and made my way back to my spot on the blanket, where I consumed everything I had just purchased. It's hard for me to think about that now, knowing what I was causing my blood sugar to do! Yikes. Suddenly, I tugged at my mom's jacket and quietly informed her I was going to throw up. I don't remember her panicking, but I do remember us quickly excusing ourselves through bundled up spectators to the bottom of the bleachers, out across the gravel as it crunched under our feet, to the stationwagon. We drove to Nonno and Nonni's house where I made a beeline for the bathroom.

One of my most comforting memories of my mom is her holding back my hair when I would throw up. I know that sounds strange, but it's true. I haven't thrown up for a long time, so the last time I tossed my cookies, my mom was holding my hair for me. Last year I was the sickest I think I've ever been. I was sick with a high fever for almost two weeks, but I never threw up. Every time I felt like I was going to, though, I would instantly think, "I can't! Mom's not here to hold my hair for me!" Maybe subconsciously that's why I wouldn't let myself throw up.

When I was done throwing up in Nonno and Nonni's bathroom, mom left me to compose myself, and I remember hearing concerned voices muffled through the door. "I'm taking her to the doctor tomorrow," mom said.

I don't remember really specific things about the days leading up to my stay in the hospital, or even really my time in the hospital, but I do remember mom was there all the time. My strongest recollections from that time aren't really detailed, but I remember never really being scared because mom was there. These are some notable things I do remember from at that time, though.

I remember Dr. Williams telling my mom to bring me to the hospital immediately, and to bring a toothbrush, because we would be there for a while.

I remember going by Grandma Ruth's house, and getting a hug from her. Thinking about it now, I realize how much strength my mom got from grandma during this time.

I remember mom helping me pack my things, specifically my pink print pajama pants and matching pink long-sleeved pajama shirt.

I remember being afraid I would have to spend the night at the hospital alone.

I remember my mom insisting they put a cot in my room (room #204, I remember that for some reason) so she could stay with me all the time.

I remember when the doctor explained to me I had diabetes, all I heard was DIEabetes. I remember mom holding my hand.

I remember them teaching me how to give shots with saline solution and oranges.

I remember squeezing my dad's hand while they inserted my IV, and insisting on keeping my eyes focused on the needle going in my arm. I was too scared to look away, I had to know exactly what was happening to me the entire time. My dad told me that's the hardest anyone has ever squeezed his hand, and I believed him for a long time.

I remember my mom asking my grandma many questions, and relying on her a lot through that time.

I remember both mom and grandma telling me to trust Jesus.

I remember mom and grandma crying.

Ever since I was diagnosed with diabetes, and now my sister Ellie is too, my mom has been very careful to make sure we're on top of our own care, and doing all that we can to be healthy. Sometimes I fight her on it, and want her to realize I'm busy and don't have time to write everything down all the time. She does realize that, but she brings it up anyway, and as much as it might get under my skin at the time, I appreciate it.

My mom loved her mom very much, and I think watching that had a big impact on me. Seeing my mom go through the death of her mother made me realize that I might have to do the same thing someday. Although it's hard to even voice that, the thought has occurred to me briefly. I want my mom to know how much I love her and appreciate her, and I am so very thankful we are close as mother and daughter. She is one of the best friends I've ever had, or ever will have.

Tomorrow I'll Rise Where The Storms Never Darken The Skies

2009-05-04T20:28:00.000-07:00

In Weed it storms sideways. The horizontal rain and the biting wind made it feel like a cold November morning at the Weed Cemetery where we buried my Grandma Ruth's ashes today. We stood, the entire (minus just a few that we missed dearly!) family, and remembered Grandma. We sang "Til The Storm Passes By," a song my grandma loved in the past few months, while she fought her last battle with cancer, that speaks of Jesus keeping his children safe in the hollow of his hand til the storm passes by. Uncle David explained how even after she couldn't sing the words, grandma would make a motion with her fingers in the palm of her hand, to symbolize being in the hollow of God's hand. As the storm hovered around us, I realized how strong grandma's testimony was, among other things, in this moment especially in this: this is just a storm in our lives, and just like He did with grandma, He will keep us safe until it's over!

Grandma died last Sunday night. When I found out I curled up on my bed and laid there for a long time, trying to process it without being home. I felt numb, like it had not really happened. I knew it was coming, but anticipating it did not make the news any easier to hear. As the realization of what life without grandma would mean sunk in, I began to let my emotions overflow into tears. That next week was hard. It was my busiest of the quarter so far with school and work, and my heart was in nothing. I took a midterm, but thought about grandma the whole time. I drove home on Thursday night. I should have known not to start listening to worship music, because it drove me to tears pretty quick. Somehow Death Cab and Matt Nathanson don't have that same effect - unless it's What Sarah Said, which I skipped over a few times in shuffle, I don't think I could have handled that one. The last line in What Sarah Said says, "love is watching someone die, so who's gonna watch you die?" Thinking about this, I realize how much grandma was loved, because she was surrounded by her children and grandchildren when she took her last breath. That comforts me quite a bit.

When I walked into grandma's house for the first time since she died, everything felt normal... but empty. When I rounded the corner and saw her green chair, where I was so accustomed to seeing her sit when I walked through the door, I bit my lip and my eyes welled up. Our family is missing the two people who started it all, and it seems to me our whole family's identity was wrapped up in grandpa and grandma... without them it seems abandoned. I know that isn't true, though. Grandpa and grandma taught us to stake our identity in Christ, and they were faithful in laying a strong foundation for us.

The memorial is over and grandma is buried now. Sometimes I think this is the hardest time, when you have to stare reality in the face. Real life floods back in, and can't be stopped. What would Grandma say, though? I can even hear her voice saying it, "well, we just have to trust God." And so, I am going to trust God.

Of course, I'm only sad for me, because grandma is in heaven with Jesus, and that must be so satisfying to her! When someone asked her if she was ready see grandpa and Uncle Ernie, she responded, "I'm ready to see my Savior!" She is experiencing what Christians on earth are working toward and longing for!

But I do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning those who have fallen asleep, lest you sorrow as others who have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who sleep in Jesus.
For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord will by no means precede those who are asleep. For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord. Therefore comfort one another with these words.
-1 Thessalonians 4:13-18

The note that cheered me up

2009-04-29T17:12:00.000-07:00

JB dictated this email to Carla for me today. It made my whole day, so I thought I'd share.

Hi Karen,

What are you doing today? Are you doing pre-school today? And it is April Fool’s Day. And don’t forget you have chickens on your head and April Fools! And bawk a bawk a bawk. And I love that Karen, and I think I am going to go blahhhhhh.

I’m sorry that you lost your Grandma Ruth. And Carla is here today and I would love Carla to take me on the ride with the 2-wheeler. But I don’t know so I’m going to need a couple of bike lessons but I want to roller skate so I’m going to need some roller-skate lessons from Carla. But I love Carla, so bye.

Love, JB

I can’t wait to see you when you get here!!!! Byejjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbb

John Byron Westfallkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk,…………………………………………………….iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii

Those K’s are for KK, and the I don’t know what the I’s are for. <--Carla wrote that part obviously.

For the joy of human love

2009-04-13T23:08:00.000-07:00

I really like spending time with my grandparents.

Wait.

Let me start over.

I LOVE spending time with my grandparents. Every time I go home I spend hours with them, and the time always goes by too fast. Because of the nature of things right now, I know I have been especially cherishing time with grandma. I struggle seeing her declining health and with each visit home seeing a little more of the grandma I remember slip away. But when I hold her hand and look her in the eye, steady, she nods, and I know it's her. Seeing her this way makes me miss her, and I miss grandpa a lot. I hate change, but I know that's the only constant thing in life.

I visited my nonni and nonno as well when I was home for Easter weekend. Sometimes I take for granted the long talks around the kitchen table in a warm kitchen that smells of biscotti, drinking cappucino and talking to them about everything from Ellie's friends at school, life in Weed when they were growing up, life in C camp, at the mill, company picnics, how nonni's mom used to feed hobo's from the train in their front yard, how nonno never got the guts to ask nonni's dad if he could date nonni- nonni had to do it, to the price of gas and produce, and the ever consistent topic of choice: the weather. I love them so much and we are constantly assured of their love for us.

I praise God for my family.

Sometimes (like tonight) I get impatient for heaven.

Self-applause creeps in

2009-04-01T00:41:00.000-07:00

I will spare you my full rantings about this topic, but to enlighten you a bit as to why I chose to post this poem, I will share a brief bit of information with you. First, you need to know that lately I've been very fed up with how self-centered people are, especially people within my age range. It's probably because I'm surrounded by it in my collegiate environment, having the idea of "me first" shoved in my face all the time. It may be subtly done, but lately to me it's written all over everyone's faces in thick, black ink. I know the reason I think about this frequently is because I am just as guilty of it as I see everyone else is. I think it sticks out to me because of my acute recognition of this "me first" approach in myself, and the immediate effect of disgust that follows.

When I was home over spring break, my grandma asked me to sing her a hymn called "There Is A Fountain Filled With Blood." I love (most) hymns (My Shepherd Will Supply My Need is my favorite! FYI), but strangely I had never heard this one. As I sang it, the words resonated with me, and I noted who the author was: William Cowper. I subsequently looked him up and read a bunch of his other hymns and poetry. This poem, "Jehovah Our Righteousness," painted such an ugly, truthful, beautiful picture of what I felt in regard to putting myself first, and letting pride dictate, that I just wanted to share it.

Also, if you have time, you should read some of William Cowper's other poems.

Jehovah Our Righteousness
My God, how perfect are Thy ways!
But mine polluted are;
Sin twines itself about my praise,
And slides into my prayer.

When I would speak what Thou hast done
To save me from my sin,
I cannot make Thy mercies known,
But self-applause creeps in.

Divine desire, that holy flame
Thy grace creates in me;
Alas! impatience is its name,
When it returns to Thee.

This heart, a fountain of vile thoughts.
How does it overflow,
While self upon the surface floats,
Still bubbling from below.

Let others in the gaudy dress
Of fancied merit shine;
The Lord shall be my righteousness,
The Lord forever mine.

Lasagna helps, a little.

2009-03-27T23:47:00.000-07:00

Today I stood in a catholic church and sang about heaven. I looked around at the people in the pews, most of them old - some with white hair, some hunched over, some with oxygen tanks, some with canes, others healthy. I looked up to the front of the stage where my Auntie Elsa smiled at me from behind the glass covering of a large framed picture that stood beside her ashes in a box. The priest spoke about heaven, and prayed for Auntie Elsa's soul. We went next door to St. Michael's Hall and ate lasagna and biscotti and drank coffee. And that's it. Auntie Elsa is gone. My Nonni's sister, my dad's aunt, our next door neighbor in Edgewood. I loved her, and I will miss her. I believe she knew Jesus, so I have hope I'll see her again. Right now, though, my heart is heavy for the people in attendance today who don't think they will see her again - or worse, think they will, but won't. Or think they might, but aren't sure. What a scary, uncertain feeling! I sensed hopelessness there today. What do you say when heaven isn't real to you? What do you think of death? When JB found out Auntie Elsa died, he said, "but that just wasn't on my calendar." It's never on anyone's calendar, and the lasagna after the service can only comfort for so long.

Some of my favorite Scripture

2009-03-15T19:23:00.000-07:00

The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands. And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else. From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. For in him we live and move and have our being.
Acts 17:24-28a

Ignored by the world but RECOGNIZED by God; terrifically ALIVE though rumored to be dead; beaten within an inch of our lives but refusing to die; immersed in tears,yet always filled with DEEP JOY; poor yet making many RICH, having nothing and yet possessing EVERYTHING.
2 Corinthians 6:9-10

Blogging breeds narcissism... I think.

2009-03-08T00:08:00.000-08:00

My fingers move across the keyboard in an attempt to prick morsels of meaning out of the air, out of cyberspace, out of my head, and meld them together in an intelligible, articulate, ultimately meaningful blog post.

What does blogging really accomplish, though? It enlightens others to my thought processes, makes them aware of what I care about and sometimes informs them of funny or interesting events in my life. Of course you want to know all about me and my opinions. Does this form of relaying information from my brain to your brain help define who I am? Maybe.

Sometimes, I get so fed up with my blog, email, iChat, facebook, I just want to delete it all and go climb to the top of a remote mountain and get all this cyber mumbo jumbo out of my system. I just want to extricate myself. Ahhhh. But the next day I'm usually right back at it. I put off another paper to post another quite unecessary blog. I can never bring myself to delete things either, because, maybe I'll want to read them later, right? (Thank goodness for gmail and it's archival capabilities... I never delete a single email. Currently I have over 3,000 emails in my inbox.) Why is it so hard for me? As if, if I delete it, I lose a part of my history or identity.

"I had this guy leave me a voicemail at work, so I called him at home, and then he emailed me to my BlackBerry, and so I texted to his cell, and now you just have to go around checking all these different portals just to get rejected by seven different technologies... it's exhausting. "
(from He's Just Not that Into You)

Why does my pulse quicken when I see that little red box in the bottom right hand corner of my facebook page? Who is talking to ME, who invited ME to an event, who was admiring a photo of ME? Yes, I enjoy sending other people messages and looking at other people's photos, but really it's all about that little red box.

When I think about it, it's exhausting to worry (even if it's subconsciously) about how I am projected through different mediums to all different kinds of audiences. I wish I didn't care when no one comments on my blogs, but I do. I wish I wasn't concerned about my various portrayals through the internet, or that it didn't really affect me, but it does... I haven't really decided what I'm going to do about it yet. Or if I'm even going to do anything at all.

Pop

2009-03-03T22:34:00.000-08:00

I wrote this story about four years ago when I was in England. I came across it tonight, and thought I'd post it. I hope my writing skills have improved a little since then, and although the lesson learned seems elementary, it is still applicable and a good reminder for me at present.

Once upon a time there was a girl who was not the most adventurous
person you would ever meet. She had lived at home her entire life, and
had never even been away for an extended period of time with the
exception of a week or two away here or there. She loved her house and
her town and her family and her friends. She had a car that she loved
driving around the area where she lived, or her little bubble, which
stretched for not very many miles in either direction. She, to say the
least, was comfortable.

When she was sixteen, she started a job. That was different for her
because it changed her schedule and tied her down; but she adjusted.
She grew to love her job and the people she worked with. She again became
comfortable.

When she was eighteen she started attending college in her bubble.
This made her nervous and she did not really want to go, because she
was unsure of what she wanted out of life and felt like she did not
have a solid goal to pursue. However, because her family encouraged
her, she went. She began to enjoy the classes she was taking and the
people she was getting to know. She again became comfortable.

Now she had been attending college for almost a year, working at her
job for almost three years, and she was perfectly content.

On an ordinary day in her ordinary life, her sister asked if she
wanted to move to England together for six months and go to a Bible
school. She thought about it carefully and realized that this
meant she would have to leave, or in more brutal terms, burst, her
bubble. On this ordinary day she decided to spontaneously apply. Both
she and her sister were accepted, so they moved to England.

She was nineteen when she got to the school, and did not know a soul
besides her sister, but she began making friends. She began attending
lectures. She began traveling around the UK. She became familiar with
her surroundings. She again became comfortable.

How can a person whose bubble was only a circumference of a few
hundred miles stretch overnight to thousands of miles? How can a
person who is nervous to get a job and go to a community college in
her area pick up and move to a different country to go to school
without having a nervous breakdown? It is because she serves a God who
is bigger than her bubble. He can break a bubble so fast you won't
even realize it's broken until you look back on its glistening remains
on the ground.

This story may seem boring to you, but it was a life changing
experience for me. I am the girl in the story. I allowed God to become
the center of my bubble. I say bubble, because I am still living in
one and so are you. No matter how fast our bubbles are popped, they
reform even faster. It may not be the same bubble I lived in a year
ago, but it is a bubble all the same. Staying outside of our bubble is
a constant state of action. If we really want God to use us with
eternal significance, we need to put Him in the center of our bubble
and allow Him to constantly be holding the pin...

In the end, it really has nothing to do with fortune.

2009-02-24T00:20:00.000-08:00

Have you ever heard of the game "Fortunately Unfortunately?" It can be quite fun and allows for considerable creative freedom, because it deals mainly with hypotheticals. If you've never played it, I would like to explain the game to you, using the example of my life in the past week. Each scenario listed, whether fortunate or unfortunate, is added in turn by each player. The game continues until a) it ends happily, b) the stated scenario is so unfortunate it could never be recovered from, or c) it simply gets too ridiculous to continue.

Example:

One day, Karen and Carla planned a weekend together in San Luis Obispo.
UNFORTUNATELY the trip was never realized because of their grandma's declining health.
FORTUNATELY they both had the weekend off, so they planned a trip home instead.
UNFORTUNATELY Karen could not fly out until late Friday night.
FORTUNATELY she got a good deal on the ticket.
UNFORTUNATELY her flight (the last flight of the night) from San Francisco - where she had a layover - to Medford was canceled!
FORTUNATELY it was canceled for mechanical reasons so the airline paid for her hotel in San Francisco.
UNFORTUNATELY she had to stand in long lines for long periods of time.
FORTUNATELY she did not have the reaction the girl in front of her did, which was to call her mother (on the phone) a *@!*$#@ @#*&% for making her come home, then sit down in the corner of the room and sob... REALLY LOUD, then yell at the customer service lady who was trying to calm her down. When offered a flight to Eugene instead, the girl said, "do you have ANY idea how far Eugene is from Medford?!? Ugggghhhhh."
UNFORTUNATELY she had to stand in line in the hotel lobby for almost two hours. (Yes, I mentioned the line thing twice. It still counts.)
FORTUNATELY the bed in the Crowne Plaza hotel was a king size, and super comfy.
UNFORTUNATELY she could only stay in that bed for about four hours.
FORTUNATELY she found a flight to Redding that arrived by 10:00 the next morning!
UNFORTUNATELY the zipper on her duffel bag broke off!
FORTUNATELY her bag stayed zipped all the way from San Francisco to Redding.
UNFORTUNATELY her dad, Carla, Ellie and Amy were 45 minutes late to pick her up.
FORTUNATELY she was so tired she didn't even care.
UNFORTUNATELY they still had a few errands to run in Redding.
FORTUNATELY they made it home in time for lunch at Grandma's! And played a fun Italian writing game in the car on the way home.
UNFORTUNATELY Grandma's internet was down, which equals no homework done on Saturday...then the power went out at the house in Edgewood.
FORTUNATELY they have a sweet candelabra.
UNFORTUNATELY time with Grandma and Nonni was shortened due to long layovers and canceled flights.
FORTUNATELY she got to see them at least a little!
UNFORTUNATELY her flight out of Medford on Monday was canceled! (She really was baffled that this could happen twice on one trip...)
FORTUNATELY she was booked on an earlier flight out of Medford.
UNFORTUNATELY her earlier flight was delayed to a later time than her original flight.
FORTUNATELY she finally flew out of Medford by 7:45pm.
UNFORTUNATELY there was heavy fog and rain in San Francisco.
FORTUNATELY she talked to a nice lady on the plane for an hour and a half who used to be a typesetter at a magazine in San Francisco called "Undertaker's Retort," then went back to school to be a microbiologist, and now is retired, playing and singing classical music...after she has an extremely interesting surgery on her thumb, which we talked about at length. It made the trip seem shorter.
UNFORTUNATELY because of the rain in San Francisco, they were only using one runway for all flights... so that made her nervous.
FORTUNATELY it didn't affect her flight at all.
UNFORTUNATELY the pilot announced they might be rerouted to Santa Barbara because of the low visibility.
FORTUNATELY they were not rerouted, the sky was clear above the fog, and they landed safely in San Luis Obispo on time. Karen was picked up by her roommate, holding a sign that said "International Businessman." (It's kind of an inside joke, but if you watch How I Met Your Mother, you should get it.)
UNFORTUNATELY she had an early class the next day, and it was already midnight.
FORTUNATELY when she checked her email at home, she found out her class was canceled!

The End

So, you get the picture. It ended on a happy note. My trip was a little stressful, but it was good to see Grandma and go to Nonni's 87th birthday party, and hear an awesome sermon by Pastor Bill, and hang with my sisters and parents. I am really glad life isn't actually based on fortune... but if you're ever bored, you should play "Fortunately Unfortunately."

"The things of earth will grow strangely dim"

2009-02-19T23:45:00.001-08:00

"She stood there until something fell off the shelf inside her.
Then she went inside there to see what it was.
It was her image of Jody tumbled down and shattered.
But looking at it she saw it never was the flesh and blood figure of her dreams.
Just something she had grabbed up to drape her dreams over..."
-Zora Neale Hurston, from Their Eyes Were Watching God

I recently read that book, and that quote stuck with me. And made me think...
What am I grabbing up to drape my dreams over...?
People will let me down. Jesus never will.

"Do not put your trust in princes, in mortal men, who cannot save.
Blessed is he[...]whose hope is in the Lord his God[...]
the Lord, who remains faithful forever."
- Psalm 146:3-6

My Day in A Sentence

2009-02-18T17:32:00.000-08:00

Asleep at 12:30am....wake up at 6:00am....stumble to the bathroom....turn on the light....squint at myself in the mirror....seriously, whose hair does that??....turn on the hot water.....shower, thoroughly enjoying the five minutes of nothingness in the hot water....get dressed....blow dry hair while reading Colossians 4 and part of Psalm 136....wear the most despised pair of pants I own because everything else is dirty, I'm even on my very last pair of underwear....think about how I must go to the laundromat later today, even though I already know I don't want to, and don't have time....catch the 7:11 bus to school....read an assigned text for my 8:00 class....get a small americano at starbucks (one pump of sugar free vanilla and room for cream, please)....arrive at class early....drink coffee....realize I came to class only to watch a movie that isn't on the syllabus....we're not being tested on it....we don't have to write a paper on it....nothing....oh well....I'll do my reading for my English class at 12:00....read for two hours during the movie....walk to the library for my two hour break....take the elevator to the fifth floor....sit down with my laptop....begin working on my annotated bibliography for my linguistics class....see Carla online....get distracted....chat with her....listen to pandora....check facebook....wish I was all over the world like some of my friends....pray for grandma....sad for grandma....wish she wasn't sick like this....thankful I found a cheap flight home for the weekend....get back to my bibliography for a while....my computer battery dies....pack up my stuff.....call my mom....she'll have to call me back.....she doesn't.....call Ellie....talk to her for a while....what time is it??......oh, I have to go to class....get my midterm back.....I did good.....relief.....find out the discussion on the reading I did in my first class is being pushed to Monday.....wonder if everything I do is useless and unnecessary.....discuss some poetry for two hours....catch the bus home....call my mom and talk to her on the ride home....get off the bus at the SLO Senior center...walk home in the sunshine....make taco salad for lunch...eat it while watching an episode of law & order....suddenly wonder why I'm wasting my time watching a rerun of law & order....go upstairs....hesitantly open my bedroom door....it's a mess....the cleaning fairy didn't come....make my bed....resist the urge to lay down on my bed....email my professor.....get everything in order to register for classes tomorrow.....return some personal emails....throw all my clothes into my laundry baskets.....drive downtown.....deposit a check at the bank....a small check....my checks are decreasing in size....it's not a good thing....worry about how I'm going to make it next quarter without working....choose to put that out of my mind....be super nice to the bank lady even though she's obviously having a week of repeat Mondays and is grumpy about it....laugh at the security guard who probably couldn't protect me from a fly....wonder why he has a job as a security guard for a good five minutes....wonder why I'm wondering about that...drive to starbucks....yes again....this time it's a grande americano....return The Secret Life of Bees to Blockbuster....think about how I really should look into Netflix....drive to the laundromat.....talk to a nice homeless man about fried chicken for a few minutes....he thanks me for being nice to him....I feel good about that....open my computer to do homework....write a blog instead.

Singin' in the Rain ... Really?

2009-02-13T19:32:00.000-08:00

I love rain. It's been raining here quite a bit lately, so that's good. This morning was especially nice. I could hear the wind howling and the rain pelting my thin window panes. I heard the trees being thrashed around and occasionally making whipping contact with the side of the house. I was cold. I then did one of the most pleasurable things in life. I hit snooze, rolled over, cuddled up and fell back asleep.

I do wonder something, though. Why is it considered romantic to walk in the rain? What's romantic about that? Singing in the rain is a nice idea, but really, I think the enjoyment can only last so long. I mean, you get soaking wet, your hair is stuck to your face, it gets frizzy, your hands are cold, your toes are cold. Even if you have an umbrella, it's a hassle to hold, and if it's windy it blows inside out. I'd much rather walk in the rain if I'm fully equipped, and then only if I have to. I love the rain, but mostly I like listening to it hit the outside of a warm building of which I'm on the protective inside. Preferably while sipping a hot drink and doing something productive. Rain makes me productive. Or, it makes me procrastinate and write blogs about rain.

Back to my paper...

I Just Called To Say I Have To Go

2009-02-04T23:37:00.000-08:00

I could probably create a separate blog about things my mom does that make me laugh really hard. For now though, I'll just enlighten you with this one thing she's done to me several times in the recent weeks.

My phone rings.
"Hello?"
"Karen?"
"Yeah, hi mom. What's up?"
"Um, well, can you hang on a second, honey?"
"Sure."
At this point I usually hear something going on in the background. Another phone ringing, JB yelling, Emily or Ellie asking questions as they rush out the door, etc.
"Karen, I'm sorry, I just don't have time to talk right now."
"OK..."
"I promise I'll call you later."
"OK mom, that's fine."
"Bye."
"Bye."

My dad said she called me a few times while they were moving furniture around. She had me on speakerphone, and was yelling across the room that she couldn't talk right then. Do I really need to say it? If you can't talk, why did you call me in the first place, mom??

10 Things I Hate About Writing Habits

2009-01-20T01:57:00.000-08:00

Since I was doing some late night writing tonight anyway, I thought I’d share my wandering thoughts on what distinctive habits I’ve formed in my writing. I’m always trying to improve, and the things I list here have recently – though some things I’m constantly aware of – caught my attention. While most things on this list are things I am working on, some of them are just pet peeves, of which I am not usually guilty.

#1) I use parentheses way too much. Just read through some of my past blogs, you’ll see. Even then, if I weren’t writing about how I am a parentheses abuser, I would have put that second sentence in parentheses.

#2) I used to abuse the use of commas but I have since tamed that tendency. I wouldn’t say I have the technique mastered, though.

#3) I used to think you shouldn’t use contractions. Period. Should not. He is. There is. Do not. You are. Etc… Silly, I know. I do think, however, that most sentences can be cleaned up when contractions are extracted.

#4) I like using the dash for affect – like this – it works.

#5) I always question whether I should use affect or effect in a sentence.

#6) I try to avoid adverbs. That’s lazy people descriptive writing – for the most part. (Notice the dash in that sentence, but oh! I used parentheses. You win some you lose some.)

#7) I really hate the word “got” and try to avoid it at all costs. The same goes for the word "that," but I'm worse at recognizing it the first time around.

#8) I once argued with somebody about whether or not it’s proper to say “there did.” I’ll give you the context. He said: “There used to be a store over there.” I said: “Yeah, there did.” I still think I was in the right in using that choice of a past tense verb.

#9) If I am in the right mood, I can be an abuser of the three-dot trailing thought. Many times when I read over things I have written, I see the … and it could easily be replaced with a simple “.” Why not conserve?

#10) I am not fond of run-on sentences. Because of this, I may write a bit choppy. If I have to choose though, I'll choose choppy any day.

Do You Know Percy?

2009-01-05T23:09:00.000-08:00

When I was in England I was introduced to the Pig named Percy. (PS- it's been three years since then... that's a little weird.) Percy Pigs are "soft gums made with real fruit juice" sold exclusively by Marks & Spencer's in the UK (and possibly some import stores, although I haven't seen them in the states yet...). Recently, a small packet of Percy Pigs took a little trip across the pond to my doorstep where they are being rationed out and consumed with much joy. It was probably my favorite candy discovery in England with Galaxy bars being a close second. Malteasers are also quite delectable. As long as we're on the topic of food - well we weren't. We were on the topic of candy. If you want to know about my favorite food from the UK you can ask me later. Plum crumble with vanilla bean custard, yorkshire puddings, bangers and mash... and in case you're wondering, no haggis does not make the list, but it is not for a lack of sampling the Scottish delicacy.

Even better than Percy Pigs, though, are the friends who wrap them up and send them to me in packages with lovely cards and other samples of British goodness. Thanks, Jo!

I feel like I should add that I bought wellies recently, too. I feel a bit of British culture coming on.

Cardboard Shapes and Fake Hair… Ready or Not, Here They Come

2008-12-22T12:29:00.000-08:00

When you’re in something, it’s tougher to actually be aware of what’s going on. You can’t see the forest for the trees and all that (it actually can be a blessing in disguise if you think about it)… Maybe that’s why when someone said to me, “your family has been so affected by cancer,” the other day, it took me a little by surprise. (Thanks, by the way, for the announcement.) It’s not like I don’t realize the bouts my family has had with cancer are serious or real, but maybe it’s because it’s always kind of been ongoing with my grandparents (especially my grandma) that I’m just used to it. Also, because I’m away at school for the majority of the time probably makes it easier for me to put it out of my head, where I’m not constantly faced with it. My grandma is losing her hair and is getting weaker from the chemotherapy. I see it now that I’ve been home for Christmas break, and it’s only been a little over a week so far. I hear about it on the phone, but it’s still not the same. When I hang up, I don’t have to turn around and deal with it immediately.

Yesterday I helped my grandma comb her wig and fit it on her head with a hat she had to resolve herself to wearing by telling herself lots of other women have to do the same thing. She didn’t like the hat. She hates the wig. She would never say it like that, but I can tell. She wants her own hair… but she wants her life more. I’m really glad she always wants to live. (I actually think the hat looked great on her, and I told her that.) Chemotherapy is not easy, and it’s not the first time my grandma has gone through it. She has had so much cancer in her body, she is literally a walking miracle. She has some awesome stories about how God has saved her from her illnesses. I love listening to her and observing her trust in Jesus.

A few years ago (I can’t believe it’s been that long) I was helping my grandpa match shapes with a “matching shapes puzzle” because he had been so affected by the radiation for his brain tumor, he was even having trouble identifying shapes. When I hear anything similar to the phrase “matching shapes puzzle” (and it’s more often than you think considering JB and all my friends who have kids) I think of grandpa struggling to fit a square cardboard cutout into a wooden board. I’m willing to bet that’s probably not your average word association.

Cancer is rough and is causing changes I don’t know if I’m ready for. Our family has already gone through a lot of unexpected change recently, but really, I know there is much more to come.

"The dream is ended: this is the morning."

2008-12-06T15:20:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I was thinking about some of my favorite passages of literature. Today I was talking about heaven with a friend as we ran on the beach, taking in the gorgeous view. I think that's why I'm posting this blog. It's not often that I think about heaven, which is a shame, because heaven is going to be great. My mom said to me once, "I think heaven is going to be like waking up from a sad dream." I've always loved the depiction of what heaven will be like in The Last Battle, the last in The Chronicles of Narnia series by C.S. Lewis.

So all of them passed in through the golden gates, into the delicious smell that blew towards them out of that garden and into the cool mixture of sunlight and shadow under the trees, walking on springy turf that was all dotted with white flowers. The very first thing which struck everyone was that the place was far larger than it had seemed from outside. But no one had time to think about that for people were coming up to meet the newcomers from every direction.
Everyone you had ever heard of (if you knew the history of these countries) seemed to be there. [...] And there was greeting and kissing and handshaking and old jokes revived, (you've no idea how good an old joke sounds when you take it out again after a rest of five or six hundred years) and the whole company moved forward to the centre of the orchard where the Phoenix sat in a tree and looked down upon them all, and at the foot of that tree were two thrones and in those two thrones a King and Queen so great and beautiful that everyone bowed down before them. [...]
About half an hour later - or it might have been half a hundred years later, for time there is not like time here - Lucy stood with her dear friend, her oldest Narnian friend, the Faun Tumnus, looking down over the wall of that garden, and seeing all Narnia spread out below. [...]
"I see," she said at last, thoughtfully. "I see now. This garden is like the Stable. It is far bigger inside than it was outside."
"Of course, Daughter of Eve," said the Faun. "The further up and the further in you go, the bigger everything gets. The inside is larger than the outside."
Lucy looked hard at the garden and saw that it was not really a garden at all, but a whole world, with its own rivers and woods and sea and mountains. But they were not strange: she knew them all.
"I see," she said. "This is still Narnia, and more real and more beautiful than the Narnia down below, just as it was more real and more beautiful than the Narnia outside the Stable door! I see... world within world, Narnia within Narnia..."
"Yes," said Mr. Tumnus, "like an onion: except that as you go in and in, each circle is larger than the last." [...]
Suddenly they shifted their eyes to another spot, and then Peter and Edmund and Lucy gasped with amazement and shouted out and began waving: for there they saw their own father and mother, waving back at them from across the great, deep valley. It was like when you see people waving at you from the deck of a big ship when you are waiting on the quay to meet them.[...]
And soon they found themselves all walking together - and a great, bright procession it was - up towards mountains higher than you could see in this world even if they were there to be seen. But there was no snow on those mountains: there were forests an green slopes and sweet orchards and flashing waterfalls, one above the other, going up for ever. [...]
Then Aslan turned to them and said: "You do not yet look so happy as I mean you to be."
Lucy said, "We're so afraid of being sent away, Aslan. And you have sent us back into our own world so often."
"No fear of that," said Aslan. "Have you not guessed?"
Their hearts leapt, and a wild hope rose within them.
"There was a real railway accident," said Aslan softly. "Your father and mother and all of you are - as you used to call it in the Shadowlands - dead. The term is over: the holidays have begun. The dream is ended: this is the morning."

For the Beauty of the Earth...

2008-11-30T21:45:00.000-08:00

...For the glory of the skies
for the love which from our birth, over and around us lies
Lord of all to Thee we raise, this our hymn of grateful praise.

It's late. But I just want to say, Thanksgiving is great. I love my family. We love each other. Even when things in my life aren't together and perfect, I seem to forget all that and just have fun. I wish there would have been snow, but there were pine trees, lots of pine trees. We cut one down to decorate for Christmas. We ate pumpkin pie and played games and drank coffee and went for walks in the crisp fall air. We sang around the piano. This may sound cheesy, but things like this are totally awesome at Thanksgiving. Cuddly cousins who give you hugs all the time, long conversations with lovely aunts, laughing at goofy uncles (everyone has one), the list goes on. Seeing the stars at night above the hint of a white mountain in the distance, then turning to see the house decorated with Christmas lights dad made sure to get up before you got home. Seeing your breath in the air, then going inside to get warm. I think I romanticize things a bit after the fact, but the fact is, that's how it is.

Despair Doesn't Work

2008-11-15T22:22:00.000-08:00

I don't want to go into detail, wear my heart on my sleeve, or wear my life on my facebook page (or in this case, blog). <-- That was for you, Carla.

I have learned the importance of keeping a quiet heart... although rarely do I actually realize how effective that is.

Two verses come to mind:

"...and to make it your ambition to lead a quiet life and attend to your own business and work with your hands, just as we commanded you, so that you will behave properly toward outsiders and not be in any need."
- 1 Thessalonians 4:11-12

"In quietness and trust shall be your strength." -Isaiah 30:15b

More often than not I would rather just splat everything out, display all my emotions and think it's the end of the world. I would rather despair.

So, simply put, today was rough. But I refuse to despair.

This morning before work I was a little down. It was still dark outside and through my window I could see the moon peering through the trees. I stared at it. I closed my eyes. I swallowed. I opened my Bible to Psalm and I read chapter 34, (I just put some of it here):

I will bless the Lord at all times; His praise shall continually be in my mouth.
My soul shall make its boast in the Lord; the humble shall hear of it and be glad.
Oh, magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt his name together.
I sought the Lord, and He heard me, and delivered me from all my fears.
They looked to Him and were radiant, and their faces were not ashamed.
This poor man cried out, and the Lord heard him and saved him out of all his troubles. <--That's me!
The angel of the Lord encamps all around those who fear Him, and delivers them.
Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good. Blessed is the man who trusts in Him!
Oh, fear the Lord, you His saints! There is no want to those who fear Him.
The young lions lack and suffer hunger, but those who seek the Lord shall not lack any good thing.
The righteous cry out, and the Lord hears and delivers them out of all their troubles.
The Lord is near to those who have a broken heart, and saves such as have a contrite spirit.
Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers him out of them ALL.

Today was not without good things, even if it is hard to sift them out.

I am thankful for my sister.
I am thankful for my mom.
I am thankful for my cousin.
I am thankful for MY GOD.

A Tribute to Jackson Pollock....Not

2008-11-14T21:49:00.000-08:00

Disclaimer: This is a very personal opinion, and if you're a person who enjoys screaming and paint splattering, I hope you are not offended. Also, I am not judging you. Maybe someday you could explain to me the meaning you find in these things I discuss.

I don't consider myself an expert on music, by any means, and I am not really picky about it - I appreciate and enjoy most genres. However, I do have my favorites and my not-so-favorites. Then there is the music that I just don't understand at all. The kind I'm referring to is the start out screaming and scream until you have no voice left and no one understood a word you said but it must have been deep and insightful and brought out all the hurt of your childhood because you screamed it, and everything carries so much emotion when it's thrust from your throat with a raspy push music. Now, I realize there was a lot of opinion packed in that last description, but it's my blog. Feel free to comment, or start your own blog if you disagree. I don't hold this opinion across the board, though. There are a few songs in which I actually think screaming is effective. For example in Showbread's song "Age of Reptiles," at the end they sing "the truth is only You" over and over until it crescendos into a scream. I think this is effective. At this point of the song though, I know what the meaning is because I know what the lyrics are. I know where the artist is coming from, and the message they are trying to get across. Granted, there are some songs I still don't understand even when I can hear all the lyrics clear as a bell. But there is something to be said for thinking about a song after you hear it, and trying to figure out what certain lyrics mean - in fact, that might be what I like most about some of my favorite songs, the fact that I think about them and find different meanings hidden each time I listen to them. That's much different than being screamed at, though.

Maybe this same inability to decipher and appreciate screaming in music has something to do with my dislike of some modern art. I like modern art, and to prove it, here are some paintings I've seen lately that I like:

Tokyo Suburbs by Joe Bachelor

I don't know the title of this one, but it's by Richard Silva

If You Listen by Gail Lapins

Mid Summer Night by Lorna Teixeira

Wooden Room by Anselm Keiffer

Self Portrait by Chuck Close

Untitled by Lee Bontecou

However, I fail to see the talent in a painting like this, by Jackson Pollock.

Or paintings like this Who's Afraid of Red by Barnett Newman:

There may be deep meaning behind it, but that doesn't mean a 5 year old couldn't paint the same picture. There's no substance for me to interpret in the splattering. To me, that picture is a visualization of the sound of screaming in music, and I don't get it.

The Day I Lost My Voice (The Suitcase Song)

2008-11-12T21:32:00.001-08:00

Some days are just like this.

2008-11-05T10:16:00.000-08:00

It Could Have Been A Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

2008-10-31T00:46:00.001-07:00

I'm convinced weather really does affect my mood sometimes, and here's why.

It was cold and overcast this morning. I was up early. Earlier than I wanted to be. Much, much, much earlier than I wanted to be. I had to drive to school, and I never drive to school. I had to pay for a day parking pass. I never pay for day parking passes! (I didn't have enough cash, so I scrounged for change.) I had to go to the lab to work on a project that had to be done this morning. Crunch time. I had a meeting after that... long and somewhat boring, but I gleaned from it what I could. After all, I've paid cold, hard cash to be in this club, so I should get something out of the investment - right? Right. After that the library, where I consumed my peanut butter and jam sandwich, painstakingly worked on my resumé and consequently got almost nowhere with it. My phone was on silent, so I missed a call from my dear friend Jo, who told me in advance she would be calling from England today. I miss her! I was very disappointed. I should have been prepared. I should have been expecting her call. It's not like I can just call her back, either. After I was done looking at the missed call, and listening to her lovely English accent on my voicemail "Hey Beaut, it's me...", I packed up my computer and hiked across campus to meet a girl, with whom I'm working on another big project.

Warning: this next part is kind of gross - but it's relevant to the story.

On the walk across campus, something began to feel terribly wrong with that peanut butter and jam sandwich I ate earlier. I ducked into a building, where luckily I know where the bathroom is. Once in the bathroom, I made sure I was the only one in there before throwing up a little in the trash. I rinsed my mouth out, thought, "gross," and then rejoined the world outside.

I met with my person, and when we finished, I turned in the sketch of the magazine layout I had prepared for our meeting. The adviser informed me that we were supposed to bring a magazine example for what we wanted our article to look like - in other words, the ideal publication it should be printed in. I honestly do not remember her saying that before, and I'm not one to forget assignments... but I just conceded and swallowed the fact of more points lost.

I welcomed the clock striking 4:00, which meant I could walk to my car, and drive to the store to run a quick errand before heading to work at 5:00. In the parking lot of Scoleri's, a man knocked on my window while I was checking my voicemail. "Did you know you have a flat tire?" He asked. Before I could get the word no out of my mouth, he was gone. Thanks, Mister.

Now, I have changed a tire before, but that was a long time ago, and I really didn't want to mess with my crappy jack, in the rain, in that crowded parking lot, when I only had 45 minutes to get to work. "No problem," I thought, "I'll just call AAA." I was helped by an Indian woman who I could hardly understand, who kept repeating the information I gave her back to me - only it was incorrect. Ah. Then she transferred me to another woman, also Indian, but, she stayed on the line. Then there were two Indian women, speaking to each other, and every once in a while saying, "are you still on the line, Miss DeRoss?" They took a half an hour to find out that my membership had expired only a few weeks ago. Really? Are you serious right now?

I walked into the store, and found a clerk who looked nice and helpful. I explained the situation, and said, "I know it's a lot to ask, but do you think there is anyone here who could help me with this?" He said sure, and went outside to get the jack out of his truck, and change my tire for me. I was extremely grateful to him, but he was not that nice to me. He seemed irritated. I don't blame him. I was irritated with myself.

Nevertheless, I drove to work with my donut tire, and made it just in the nick of time.

I could have let this series of events ruin my day, and probably would have except for one small detail: it was raining! And it's about time. It was just hard for me to be in a bad mood with the refreshing rain splashing against the earth.

This video relates to what I felt like today, and is amusing.

Leaf through the paper no more

2008-10-29T18:21:00.000-07:00

One of the most internationally acclaimed newspapers of this country, the Christian Science Monitor, is soon to cease being printed daily. By printed I mean the traditional style, ink on paper, delivered to your doorstep or favorite local coffee shop printed. By April 2009 the Monitor will be printed solely online. Though this news does not come as a surprise to me, it brings a little closer the realization that everyone is having to do their part and make sacrifices to survive the state of the country's economic crisis (did you hear Mervyn's is liquidating?) as well as simply progressing with the times. While this development will cut costs significantly for the Monitor... there is a long-standing tradition that is being phased out.

I am not of the generation that is used to picking up a newspaper and flipping through its pages regularly, but I can't deny that it feels different to hold a newspaper in my hand than it does to scroll through web pages. I used to read the Christian Science Monitor at school, while I drank my coffee and waited for class to start. (Now, oh dear! I will have to switch to The New York Times.)

I just found this news interesting, because it is a big step for such a prominent news organization to make. Yes, it is only one publication, and one that not a large percentage of the population even reads. Yes, print is far from being phased out completely. Even the Monitor will be putting out a weekly edition. Yes, it is necessary to make these kinds of changes and I am not opposed to it, but it's significant. Years from now, when everything is only printed online, this will be looked at as a turning point in the history of print media... a medium that may not even exist at that point in time.

I want to wash my hands, my face and hair with snow

2008-10-26T00:13:00.001-07:00

Tonight I was walking home from downtown, where I was watching Nick and Nora's Infinite Playlist with my friend (who happens to also be my roommate) Emma. It was a pretty cute movie, but that's beside the point. It was cold outside, and we started talking about snow and how great snow is. Snow makes things quiet, a muffled quiet so you feel tucked in. Snow is clean. It makes everything look fresh, it's gorgeous. (Except when you're ten years old and set up a snow cone shop in the front yard, using food coloring and sugar to "flavor" the snow cones. Then it looks like someone tie-dyed it. Or just drank a bunch of food coloring, then threw up in the snow. Either mental picture works.) You can build fake people out of snow. You can sled in it. You can snowboard in it. You can snow-shoe in it. You can throw it at people. See what I mean? The list goes on. Mostly, I miss the smell outside after it snows, and I miss looking at it. So this blog post is simply to voice my wishful thinking and say I'm ready for snow.

...I'd love to stay up with you but I recommend a little shuteye
Go to sleep
And dream
Of snow...

Run Like A Girl

2008-10-21T00:20:00.000-07:00

My day on Sunday, October 19:

2:30am - Wake up in a hotel in San Francisco to the sound of a major fight going on in the street below. SCREAMING! YELLING! CUSSING! CRYING! HITTING! Emily is on the phone with 911 reporting it. I feel dazed. Where am I? What am I doing here? We look out the window to see two groups of people pitted against each other ready to go at it. Soon enough I will have to wake up again and put on my running clothes. Quick! I have to go back to sleep...

5:00am - Three obnoxious cell phone alarms pierce the silence that cloaks me in so comfortingly. I am too nervous to fall asleep again. I lay with my eyes wide open, my head on the pillow. I sigh. I get up. Put on my running clothes. Put on my tennis shoes. Put my hair in a ponytail. Pin back the strays. Pop four ibuprofen. Stretch a little. Eat some fruit and granola. Mentally prepare for what I'm about to do. (What am I thinking?)

6:00am - Leave the hotel with Carla and the girls. The city is dark. There are people everywhere, just like it is the middle of the day. Thousands of women are flooding to Union Square, preparing to run their race. Music is playing, there is free water and gatorade. I drink some. "Are you ready for this, KK?" Carla asks me. I smile and nod. "Yeah, I guess so," I say. We sit down to stretch and pray. Mom and dad call. "One step at a time, one stride at a time, ok Kakes?" my dad encourages me.

6:45am - Carla and I make our way into the masses of women standing in the street. At least there is body heat - we're standing shoulder to shoulder among thousands - because it is cold! We talk to a nice lady from Arizona who tells us she drove the course the day before and that the course is beautiful! She encourages us to not just look at the road, but to focus on the scenery.

6:57am - The National Anthem is sung. We look at the flag. Take it all in.

7:00am - The race starts. We move with the crowd to begin the 13.1 mile run...

The first six miles were awesome. At mile six I had to work hard to push through for a while. My chest hurt from breathing deep because I had a cold. My sinus headache was getting to me. My blood sugar was high and my blood felt like pudding in my veins. I walked for a bit and it helped. I started running again. Drank some water at a water station. There were some pretty sweet downhills to make up for the San Francisco uphills on the course. At about mile 11.5 my body felt stiff and my skin felt numb and tingly. I wasn't sure that was normal, so I asked Carla. She said she didn't think so. I walked a bit there, but then decided I might as well run. I only had 1.5 miles to go.

Somehow I missed the mile marker for mile 12, so when I turned a corner and was running through the cheering section and saw the finish line right in front of me, I thought I still had over a mile to run. What a relief! I looked at Carla and said "I thought we still had to pass mile 12!!" "No, we're here, run!" she said. I crossed the finish line, and it was great. A San Francisco firefighter handed me a necklace from Tiffany & Co and congratulated me. We were handed a bunch of free stuff. We met up with Emily and Ellie and Tim and Autie who were waiting for us at the finish. We ate granola and smoothies by the beach with them for breakfast...

Then I drove home from San Francisco. I went to bed at 8pm and slept like a rock. Today my shoulders are very sore. Tomorrow I have a midterm.

It's early and cold. Getting ready to run!

Lots of people.

Mile 11 on the course.

I'm Baby Stepping, I'm Doing the Work...

2008-10-16T23:48:00.000-07:00

Life is a lot easier when you think of it in terms of taking it a day at a time. I like planning ahead, and I think that's important, but it's also necessary for me to realize that I only have to live one day at a time when I begin to feel overwhelmed. I'll get there (wherever there is) eventually. Granted, sometimes I do feel like I need a prescription to take a vacation from my problems, but then I start to look at only one baby step at a time. It really does help, I promise. I mean, if it works for Bob Wiley...

Grace is Gone

2008-10-12T10:31:00.000-07:00

If you haven't seen the movie Grace is Gone, then I think you should.

Once I Shed the Whole of Me, Then I'll Be Smiling

2008-10-10T20:11:00.000-07:00

"They litter me with small awarenesses, then they ask if I'm good enough." -Matt Nathanson.

Sometimes I feel this way, but once I realize it's not about me, then I can really be happy. Joyful. My life is for God's glory. It's why I was put here on this earth. If I think it's about me, then I will never be satisfied. I will always be let down. I'm too caught up in school, relationships, work and personal ambitions. I can't put too much stock into what I want or what people say about me. Even the best of friends or the most spiritual of Christians can make me feel inferior and inadequate. I can't compare myself to them, and I can't rely on their approval. I can only humbly offer my life to Jesus - live in service to Him. I fall out of this mindset too easily. My identity is in Christ. Alone.

In Christ alone my hope is found;
He is my light, my strength, my song;
This cornerstone, this solid ground,
Firm through the fiercest drought and storm.
What heights of love, what depths of peace,
When fears are stilled, when strivings cease!
My comforter, my all in all—
Here in the love of Christ I stand.

Colossians 3:1 - If then you were raised with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God. Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth. For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is our life appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory.

Colossians 3:8b-9a - since you have put off the old man with his deeds, and have put on the new man who is renewed in knowledge according to the image of Him who created him.

Unexpected Slammed Doors

2008-10-07T21:30:00.000-07:00

I just found out that I have a few more units to take than I expected in order to graduate in June. I had a temporary freak out, but now that I know what I have to do I will just buckle down and get it done. It's really a drag when your academic adviser screws up and misinforms you. But I am over my frustration at him and now am just trying to plan my life for the next year. I might go to Bosnia in the summer. It's very tentative, but I applied for a short term thing over there. I hope it works out because I think it would be very cool. But now this possibly not graduating in June thing seems to be throwing a wrench into the mix. But I just need to trust God. As the pastor at Celebration, Aaron Porter (who I love) says, "A shut door doesn't always mean God is telling you no, sometimes God wants you to bust that door down." So I'm going to keep pursuing this... and we'll see what happens.

Another One

2008-10-03T21:57:00.001-07:00

I started another blog. It's called "...That Was Awkward..." You should check it out.

Where does your picture hang?

2008-10-02T23:09:00.001-07:00

And I just really like this music video:

Psalm 130

2008-09-27T20:14:00.000-07:00

Sunrise at Pismo Beach. I run here. Or walk. Or sit. Or stand in the waves.

Anything I consider reliable pales in comparison to God's faithfulness.
Even the dependability of the rising of the sun.
Wait for the Lord.

"My soul waits for the Lord more than those who watch for the morning - yes, more than those who watch for the morning."
- Psalm 130:6 -

Thoughts

2008-09-24T19:41:00.000-07:00

These are stray things I feel like posting, but didn't know how to (or possibly I'm just too tired to) string them all together in a connected blog post. So, I'm just going to say them, list style.

#1: Someday I want to live in a house with trees in the yard and a front porch, preferably with a porch swing.

#2: Today I saw three people on unicycles, all at different times of the day.

#3: Today I also saw a perfectly normal looking man walking down the street - perfectly normal looking excepting the fact that he had angel wings pinned to his back. Hm.

#4: Today I almost got hit by a car. I could have died! But I didn't.

#5: My room smells like Thanksgiving right now (I attribute it to the Pumpkin Spice and Apple Pie candles I have burning.) It's very nice. I didn't intend on including this one in my list when I started this post, but I think it was worth mentioning.

I Don't Want to Grow Up... Sometimes...

2008-09-20T22:48:00.000-07:00

I recently spent an evening with two of my very best friends - and their baby girl. Instead of goofing off and wasting time and watching movies and tv and playing video games, or doing puzzles, or making brownies at midnight or any of the things we used to do before we had to schedule time to hang out, we just sat in the living room and talked about kids and politics. I also heard about the mom's Bible study my friend is starting. Kids and politics are interesting enough, and it's awesome Char is starting a Bible study for new moms, but sometimes I don't want to grow up. Somewhere in between the story about how Char forgot the diapers one day and discussing McCain's campaign strategy, it hit me how much things have changed.

However -

that night Angelina learned how to say my name. She kept coming up to me, or pointing to me and saying "Hi! Hi Tay Tay." That was pretty awesome. I also got to see Lina dance with her daddy in the living room, which I later learned was a rare privilege. It was fun. So I do love kids and I do like politics, and I generally like Bible studies. Every once in a while I just don't feel that old, that's all.

Simple, Like A Breath of Fresh Air

2008-09-14T00:06:00.000-07:00

I wish I had a picture to post with this entry, but I think it would take away from the word picture I'm trying to paint anyway. So no picture for you.

One foot in front of the other. Late afternoon sun casting leafy shadows on the pavement. June bugs humming, cows mooing, flies buzzing. The heat permeates the air with the sweet smell of blackberries. Things that slowly, but steadily pass through my peripheral vision as I focus on the road ahead: railroad tracks, a small country school, a picturesque cemetery, a Victorian house with a white picket fence, a beautiful, lazy river cutting its way through hills and trees, a mountain. Favorite familiar songs on my iPod fill my mind with distraction and motivation enough to keep putting one foot in front of the other as I wipe sweat from my forehead and fan myself with my t-shirt. It feels good to breathe hard with the sun beating down on me. As the late September afternoon turns into an early September evening with a harvest moon against the periwinkle sky that meets the earth along a jagged line of pine tree tips, I turn the corner onto Creamery Lane. My mom's flowers in the front yard are so pretty, and our grass is green, soft and refreshingly wet after being watered. I pat my dog on the head as she sits on the doorstep, her pink tongue hanging out of her mouth and her tail swishing from side to side. (Lady used to come on runs with me, but can't now because she's been getting seizures. Sad.) I sit down beside my dog, who lays her head in my lap - endearing - and gaze across our yard, across the small country road, across our neighbor's yard to the impressive Mt. Shasta. Even without snow it can put on a show.

That's a slice of my day. I wish I always appreciated things like I appreciated them today. Sometimes my runs through Edgewood are like an overwhelmingly simple breath of fresh air.

Blackberries and Other Good Things

2008-08-31T20:23:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow I get to go home.

Really, you have no idea how much weight those words carry right now. The first thing I'm going to do is take a long drink of cold, Edgewood water. Then I'm going to go for a run in the evening down Edgewood road. Then I'm going to hang out with my family in the living room and relax. Maybe I'll eat some homemade popcorn because it's delicious. Like the kind you pop in the pan, not the microwave crap. The next day I told JB I would take him on a picnic and we would pick blackberries. He said "ok, but I just might get some scratches, KK." I told him we would be careful, but if he got a scratch that we could put a band-aid on it. He said, "But we will be far away from the house!" I assured him we could pack some band-aids along just in case, "OH! That's a GOOD idea, KK!" So I'm excited about that. I'm also looking forward to seeing my Grandma and Nonno and Nonni. I really wish I could see Carla, but she's leaving right before I will arrive. Oh well. I get to see her next weekend, then stay with her in Bend for a few days. I love Bend. The main thing I'm looking forward to is not having to work 12 hours a day, 7 days a week, for months on end. (Ok, ok, it's not months on end, but two months can feel that way.) The things I'm looking forward to eating are:
-Blackberry Cobbler
-Green salad with fresh tomatoes and lemon cucumbers. YUM.

I realize this might sound overdramatic, but who cares. I'm just really glad I get to go home.

I Am Plagued with Common Sense

2008-08-28T20:22:00.000-07:00

Level-headed, mature, has so much common sense, solid, a rock, not emotional.

These terms have all been used to describe me, by a wide array of people. Now, before you become disgusted with me and stop reading this, (or perhaps you're so intrigued by my self praise at this point that you will read on anyway)know that at this moment in time, and in fact many moments in time, I am frustrated with my common sense. Why? Because it's so restraining! Don't think I am not flattered by these descriptions of me by others, I am 100% flattered, and most of the time I love my non-emotional common sense. But I would love to be able to just flip out once in a while. You know, yell at someone because I have grounds to. Or just cry and cry and have someone else tell me it will be OK rather than having my stupid common sense brain screaming at me, "Karen, how much does this or will this really matter in the grand scheme of things?" Stop common sense, go away! Just for one day let me over-react and exaggerate and think that it's the end of the world. When I have grounds to be mad at someone, let me give it to them, stop pulling my grounds out from under me. Let me grieve at the loss of a friendship, or complain because I've been sitting in a trailer all summer and not feel guilty about it.

Even now, I feel like posting this blog is an emotional reaction that I will regret because my common sense tells me I don't need this release, that I am just fine. So perhaps I will delete it tomorrow. And perhaps I won't. My common sense and I have had a lot of battles lately.

Words Aren't Enough

2008-08-12T14:42:00.000-07:00

What do you say when a seasoned firefighter tells you he's spent the last two days searching for and going through the remains of the nine firefighters killed in the recent helicopter crash in Trinity County? What do you say when he can't help crying after he's said that? What do you say? Or do you say nothing at all? I'm sorry seems inadequate. Silence seems uncaring. What do you say when he looks up from their pictures with tears in his eyes and asks, "did you know any of these guys? I did." What do you say? I don't know - all I know is I had to say something when this happened to me today. I mumbled that I am sorry for the loss, and I can't imagine how he must be feeling. He thanked me and it seemed genuine - like he knew I was searching for the words but could not find them. I think it's because sometimes there are none, but they are the best way for us to convey our sincerity in caring.

It's easy to detach myself from what's happening around here without realizing it. Today though, as images of the fallen firefighters and pilot flooded the trailer (office), I was acutely aware of my emotions, and it was hard for me. Pictures of them with their families, their new wives, their fiances... reading of their ambitions of finishing school, starting school - the seven that were killed were so young! Somehow it feels closer to home since they were all from Southern Oregon (Central Point, Grants Pass, Medford, Ashland).

What do you say? I have no idea.

It's stupid to play tug-of-war with God

2008-07-08T19:46:00.000-07:00

A big lesson I've been learning from God in these past months is about letting go. Under that umbrella there have been many experiences that have pointed me to that concept. Even in small things, like school decisions, summer jobs, etc., God is teaching me to allow Him to take control. The tricky part is that it can't be of my own doing - that is, if I try to give things to God, I inevitably try to get them back sooner or later, whether consciously or subconsciously. That's why the lesson I've been learning from God is about letting it go rather than giving it up. It's because God has to take things from me, and I have to let go of them. When I try to give them to God they fall back to me, because even though I want to, I don't know how to give them completely away. It's almost as if I know what I want, but I don't want what I want. (I'm not sure if that makes sense, but I feel like it's a process to get to want what you know you truly want, or perhaps know you truly need. You have to get past the surface level stuff.) I've also been learning that God is extremely caring when he offers to take things away from us, things we want to hold onto, but He knows we shouldn't be clinging to. With me recently, He has been doing this slowly, and slowly replacing the things that it hurts to watch fade away with something infinitely better - Himself.

I tripped on a xylophone.

2008-06-27T17:04:00.000-07:00

I’ve only been home for a day, and have already tripped on a xylophone. JB left it in front of the laundry room door leading to the garage. I was trudging up the steps with a big garbage bag full of dirty laundry, (what respectable college kid doesn’t come home with dirty laundry? And lots of it for that matter…) so my vision was partially obstructed. There the xylophone was. Here I came. The xylophone didn’t move, but my foot did – right toward it, then down on top of it, which forced my body to move from an upright position to an awkward seated position on the floor, accompanied by the ringing clang of the xylophone. I called out,
“JB!”
“What KK?”
“Did you leave this xylophone here?”
“Nope!” He said, his curls bouncing with every shake of his head. “Uh, what’s a xylophone, KK?”
“This” I said, pointing to the bright colored instrument on the floor.
“Oh…” realization crept into his face. “I just, I just, I just think I did KK.”
“KK tripped on it.”
“I’m just pretty sorry about that KK.” He put his arms around my neck. His curly head fit so perfectly on my shoulder – I always take advantage of his hugging moods.
“It’s OK JB, that was kind of funny huh?” The ease in my voice gave him license to giggle, then we both started laughing.

I’m really glad to be home for a while. I love living on my own away from my family, and I think I adjusted pretty well, but when I come back I remember what it means to really share things with people – not to mention the danger of stray xylophones.

So, I have this friend...

2008-06-10T10:30:00.001-07:00

Hypothetical situations are sometimes pointless and confusing.

First of all, they always start with “let’s say…” Let’s? Who’s talking? You? No. You’re the one who is being talked to. You’re not saying anything, you’re sitting through a completely “fictitious” situation that is actually completely factual – the names just happen to be different in order that you can provide advice, or most times just a bucket to catch the dumping of gossip somebody wants to give, but feels guilty about unloading.

For instance…

Let’s say, hypothetically, someone comes up to me and says:

Let’s say I have a friend named Bill. (They don’t have a friend named Bill, but let’s just say they do for the sake of the story.) One day Bill runs into Bob, my friend’s (let’s call her Jane, and of course they don’t actually have a friend named Jane.) hypothetical ex-boyfriend (Jane doesn’t really have an ex-boyfriend, but let’s say she does, for the sake of the story.) They, Bill and Bob, begin talking, and become friends. I find out that Bill and Bob are friends, but Bill doesn’t know who Bob is. Bill and Bob are such good friends now that they do almost everything together. They invite me to hang out with them all the time, but I don’t know if I should because of Bob and Jane’s past. Do you think I should tell Jane that I have been hanging out with Bob? Or that Bill and Bob are friends? Or should I keep it a secret? She’s going to find out eventually anyway.

Doesn’t the person telling me this know that of course I know that Bill is really Erick, that Bob is really Steve, and that Jane is really Jessica? Come on.

In writing this I realize that I just posed a hypothetical in order to poke fun at a hypothetical. A blatant contradiction, yes, but you get my point, right?

"Snuggle Jesus"

2008-05-26T01:05:00.001-07:00

Snuggle defined:
1. To draw close especially in comfort or in affection
2. To make snug

Tonight at Celebration I really liked my thoughts that followed something Aaron Porter said. He was talking about heaven, and how the first thing he wants to do when he gets there is to snuggle with Jesus. At first, that sounds kind of funny, but once he said it and kept talking about it, the more I really liked the picture that presented. You snuggle with someone you love so you can show your affection for them, and it provides a feeling of security, too. How appropriate for our relationship with Jesus. The more he talked about it, the more excited he became - "I'm going to snuggle with Jesus!"

I've often experienced the desire that Jesus was here - physically - so I could just give him a hug. Or rather, so he could just hug me. A lot of times things seem so much better after you've "hugged them out." I have never really been a touchy-feely kind of person (I've never even liked that term, really, it's weird that I used it), but I do like hugs, when given without awkwardness at least. (There have been plenty of awkward hugs in my lifetime - most of the time initiated by me when I don't know what else to do. Because I'm someone who is not confident in my hug-initiating skills, I'm better off letting somebody else institute the hug. I'm a really good hug-receiver, though. If you're reading this and thinking "I'll never hug Karen again because she thinks it's awkward" - don't! I love hugs, really I do.) Can you imagine though, how it would be to hug Jesus? I get really excited just thinking about it - knowing that when we get to heaven we can actually, physically put our arms around Jesus and give him a hug. On this same note, I've always liked this poem - it makes you want Jesus to hug you so bad. I can't wait...

"The Hug Poem" by Bradley Hathaway
I read about how you touched them and they were healed
Or even if someone just touched your cloak they were forever changed
You let a broken women bathe your feet in her tears
And you washed your best friend’s feet
I am just wondering though did you just ever hug people

I mean I know that it is a silly question and all I am sure you would have why wouldn’t you
But its one of those things that was never mentioned that got me thinking about it

And how whenever there was a touch from you sins were forgiven and sickness fell
I think I’m caught up in my sins last time I checked all my body parts were properly working, nothing special here
I am just a kid with a heavy heart these passing sunrises and sunsets

I don’t think our encounter would have ended up in the gospels or anything
Because all I really need is a hug
That is ok for me to imagine right
That’s not going to be conflicting with any sort of theology is it
Ok good, then hug me

But not one of these side ways one arm around the neck type hugs
Or the ghetto right hand clasp fists elbows to chest pit pat on the back back
Or you put your right arm over my right arm and I put my left arm over your left arm and we make this weird sort of diagonal thing
Nah none of those

BEAR HUG ME MAN
Take your old school carpenter arms and throw them over my upper body leaving my arms dangling underneath yours somewhere and I can barely move them because your squeezing so hard
But don’t pick me up and make my back pop because I hate it when people do that

And hold me, hold me here in your arms until I start to cry because
I WANT TO CRY
But I just can’t seem to do it on my own
I have been teary eyed once recently but not even enough for a drip down my cheek
Theres just hurt in my soul that needs to be purged so hold me in this hold pose until the pain is flowing from my eyes and nose

A page from the composition notebook

2008-05-19T01:33:00.000-07:00

Journal entry from 5/11/08:

I want to love like Jesus loves. I want people to feel a difference when I love them. I want my actions for Jesus to define who I am. (In Matthew 11:4-6, when John asks Jesus who He is, Jesus answers with what he does. To me, that's powerful.) I want to not be distracted by human relationships and things that through an objective eye are insignificant, but while I'm in them seem life-altering. I fasted yesterday. I don't really know exactly why - I had things I wanted to pray about. I guess I should have prayed a little more than I actually did, but I still feel like it was good to do. I didn't get any answers flying at me from the sky, but I did get directed toward the concept of love a lot. Even now, reading about Jesus' love in John, and "My Utmost For His Highest" was even about love today, - I haven't read that in a while. Jesus can satisfy me, and give me the ability to love others and myself. Sometimes I wish I could just fulfill those desires practically - and that would make me feel better - but I have to be careful not to think that loving people in practical ways is what will satisfy. Jesus is what satisfies. Period. It's because we are satisfied that we love. I get it so messed up and backwards sometimes.

I am the true vine and My Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit. You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you. Abide in Me and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me. I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing. - John 15:1-5

Love Does Not Seek Its Own

2008-05-11T01:31:00.001-07:00

Love for others as a result of my love for Jesus has been on my mind. We can love completely without complete understanding. We cannot be each other. No matter how close we are to other people, or how deep a relationship we have with them, we cannot understand them fully, simply because we are not them. Even if this kind of a relation was possible, being able to connect with someone 100 percent is not essential to loving them 100 percent - which is what Christ instructs us to do, utilizing of course the love He has given us in the Spirit. Selfishness is what distracts us from loving others completely. (Selfishness is the root of all sin, really. It's ugly.) Tonight I watched Into the Wild. It was good. I realized though, that the mentality behind Chris McCandless' travels was selfish. What he was able to do and see was really cool, but in the end, he died alone. It is profound when you see him write "happiness is only real when shared." It made me sad, and grateful that there is more to life than what Chris found. I thank God for human relationships and the small picture they are of our relationship with Him.

It's iffy that Wilford can wait that long, but maybe I can...

2008-05-05T21:42:00.000-07:00

First, I read this story. It's kind of exciting, but I've heard so much stuff like this in the news, that I'm skeptical... and it's always five or ten years away. What happened to the studies they were doing five or ten years ago? Just wondering.

A Surgical Cure for Diabetes?

Then, I saw this next article. Completely a coincidence... I wear one of these!! The headline is definitely scarier than the article, and I'm responsible with my pump, so I know my risk of death by insulin pump is almost obsolete... but still, it made me wish that the findings from the first article could be proved and implemented quicker.

Insulin Pumps linked to injuries, death

I usually don't even remember that I have diabetes - honestly (unless I'm being taunted - "I'm Wilford Brimley, and I have diabeetus" - I'm sure you know what I mean...) - but today when I saw the phrase "a surgical cure for diabetes," I got excited.

Eh, we'll see what happens in five or ten years... let's hope Wilford makes it that long.

I Found Anger I Didn't Know Was There

2008-05-04T23:49:00.000-07:00

I watched this video tonight on 60 Minutes. During this segment, and especially after, I was fighting to keep swelling emotions inside, even tearing up a little, which as you know is unusual for me. For the first half, I couldn't figure out why I was reacting this way. Then it dawned on me. JB's mom, Hillary, is in prison for life. They want her to plead guilty, but she is refusing, even with the option of parole hanging in the balance. I don't know the ins and outs of the case, but I do know that she's missing her son growing up. God brought him into our lives through this situation though, and we love him so much (I miss him a lot) - but watching this tonight really made me hurt for Hillary. It made me angry at the injustice of it all, and how complicated things have to be.

(The parts that really got to me come at minutes 1:30 and 8:00 in the video, if you don't want to watch the whole thing.)

"Her Beauty Makes Others Beautiful"

2008-05-03T15:00:00.000-07:00

In England there is a man named Rob Whittaker. He is the principle at Capernwray Hall, a Bible school housed in a "castle" nestled in the breathtaking hills of the Lake District in Northern England. During my time at this school, Rob said many things that convicted me, taught me, increased my knowledge of the Bible, and encouraged me. One of the things he said that I want to mention because it's been on my mind, is not necessarily a revelation, and it's not as if I didn't know it already - but every time I realize I'm not doing this, I think of Rob. He said,

"If you want to know what God is like, get to know Jesus. It's a good idea to spend a little time every day reading in the gospels, soak in what Jesus is like."

I definitely have not read out of the gospels every day since I heard this advice - but I think it is a really good suggestion. If not every day, at least often. I've known Jesus for a long time, but I will never know him well enough. He is so constant, yet I continue to learn new things about Him and from Him. Reading about Jesus is so rewarding - and it's cool because Jesus likes spending time with us. Another thing Rob said that I really liked,

"I'm going to tell you something that 90 percent of Christians don't know. Not only does Jesus love you, He likes you."

I really like this thought. It's encouraging and comforting. And I need to remember it more often.

Another semi-related thought - last week I was studying for a midterm; cramming my head full of information about the legend of Tristan and Isolde. I have read six different books about this story, by six different authors by this point in the quarter. My brain was a little tired and I was having trouble separating who said what in what book, etc. (It was also 1 a.m. - so that could be a contributing factor to the confusion.) In reading the description of Isolde's beauty, in the text written by Gottfried von Strassburg, I came across this line, and it stood out to me amid the haze of information. The line was simply this, "...her beauty made others beautiful." I stopped and tried to wrap my mind around that. What a cool description. It made me think about one of my favorite passages of scripture in Isaiah 53:

"...He has no stately form or majesty that we should look upon Him, nor appearance that we should be attracted to Him. He was ... a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief."

Even though there was no reason from His physical appearance that people should be attracted to Jesus, they were still drawn to Him. The beauty of His love and sacrifice made us beautiful and perfect in God's eyes.

In getting to know Jesus, and endeavoring to be more like Him, I would love for my "beauty" to make others beautiful - that they would see Christ in me and in turn reflect it in their own lives.

Even the Bus Driver was Grumpy

2008-04-20T13:05:00.000-07:00

7:11 a.m. Cold. Brick Bench. Wind. Eyelids heavy. Anticipatory thoughts of the day that stretches out in front of me. I'm waiting for the bus. I sigh and pull out my book. The one I was supposed to finish last night - I had heavy eyelids then, too. I hear the low moan of the bus approaching in the distance, it's pulling up the hill. Soon I see it, the 5. It's full. I'll have to stand. I get up from the bench, adjusting my book bag so it is more secure on my body. I get out my Poly card. The bus stops. I swipe my card, wait for it to beep, then board. The bus driver greets me with a "Good morning, miss." I smile my default smile and say hello. With a warning to "please hold on," the bus pulls into motion.

Usually the bus driver (I almost always have the same one, probably because I take the same bus to school at the same time most days...) is in a chipper mood. I say chipper, even though I don't love that word, because its definition fits exactly how the bus driver comes across. He treats the passengers as though they are traveling on an airplane. "Thank you for choosing the SLO transit system. We realize you had various means of transportation, and we greatly appreciate you choosing us." I've grown to not listening to my iPod on the bus anymore, in order to be entertained by my chipper bus driver. "Ladies and gentlemen, we have clear skies which should ensure a smooth flight," "Please make sure your tray tables and seats are locked and in the upright position, we're coming in for a landing at Cal Poly - University Union, watch your step as you exit the bus. Have a great day."

To be met with such an attitude at the beginning of a long day, believe it or not, seems to help my perspective.

However, today was different. The bus driver was not chipper. He did not even say hello to me when I boarded the bus. He did not call out the stops. He did not greet anyone who boarded. He did not make any jokes. I think the only thing he said was, "you need to stand behind the yellow line" to a passenger who was inadvertently straying from the designated safe area.

This experience took place after I had been sitting, cold, on the brick bench, waiting for the bus to arrive, and wondering about disappointments in life. Disappointments like training to run a half marathon, then getting a stress fracture two weeks before the race - when I had worked up to running almost ten miles. Disappointments like realizing I have a long paper to write this week that I have not started, and that I will have to work all three days this weekend. (Fri, Sat, Sun.) Disappointments like knowing you're too broke to drive home for a three weekend coming up. (I miss my family, but gas is over $4 a gallon here!)

When I got on the bus, I think I was subconsciously expecting my mind to be distracted and my mood to be lightened by the bus driver's lively, animated service. Today his service was just service, though, nothing extra. It made me think. Other people have disappointments. One of my sisters has a weird infection in her hip that is preventing her from running and dancing. My other sister did not get accepted to a school she applied to. One of my friends didn't get a job she wanted. Everyone has to deal... even the bus driver.

Complex Commonality

2008-03-07T22:01:00.000-08:00

"...it's better than doing it in Vegas..." "...then he handed me the banana, and I threw it at him..." "...literally, everybody was puking at the same time. Literally..." "...it's just hard now because my home doesn't feel like home anymore. My parents split up and now strangers live in the house I grew up in..." "...oh, man, seriously? You need to call her and apologize. Right now..." "...yeah, they met at a logging competition. What is a logging competition anyway?" "...I went skydiving yesterday!"

This succession of statements is an example of snippets of conversations I hear every day - riding the bus, walking across campus, at work, studying downtown... It is interesting to me how many lives converge under the umbrella of necessity, but how separate everyone's life really is. People are funny. Hearing passing comments like this makes me wonder from what context those statements stemmed.

How can people's lives be so intricate, so complicated, so interweaving and yet so separate? This is not the first time I have experienced this sentiment, and I know I am not the only one who has. Maybe this is idea of being alone together is why humans desire so bad to connect - to something, to someone.

Everyone's world is so real to them, so important - but somehow things seem to lose significance if they do not directly affect me in some way. Sometimes (I probably should venture to say most times) it's even hard to connect emotionally to things that do directly affect me. It's easier to look at them from a self-proclaimed distance, to push them away so I don't have to deal with them - to avoid getting hurt or facing that looming inevitable situation I don't want to face.

In the meantime, since I first heard the fragments of those conversations, people's lives have been moving on, their issues, big or small, significant or insignificant, have been resolved, or made worse, maybe they have completely new issues now, or perhaps they haven't dealt with them at all...maybe they have detached themselves from the situation, or maybe they have come to see the crushing reality of facing the inevitable. I wonder... did the guy call and apologize? Did the girl realize there is more to life than throwing bananas at people? Or did she come to the conclusion that the banana needed to be thrown? I will never know, and I will stop wondering about it soon, because the things in my life will soon regain my full attention.

Crowded Solitude

2008-02-26T22:33:00.000-08:00

"We live together, we act on, and react to, one another; but always and in all circumstances we are by ourselves. The martyrs go hand in hand to the arena; they are crucified alone. Embraced, the lovers desperately try to fuse their insulated ecstasies into a single self-transcendence; in vain. By its very nature every embodied spirit is doomed to suffer and enjoy in solitude. Sensations, feelings, insights, fancies -- all these are private and, except through symbols and at second hand, incommunicable. We can pool information about experiences, but never the experiences themselves. From family to nation, every human group is a society of island universes. "
-Aldous Huxley, "The Doors of Perception"

I read this quote today and felt it coincided with a few thoughts that have recently been filtering through my head. Sometimes I feel detached. Disconnected. Maybe it is because I am dealing with new experiences lately, or maybe because I am in semi-fresh surroundings, probably both. Maybe neither. Maybe I'm just trying to pin a cause to my wandering thoughts and feelings. Whatever it is has put me in a reflective mood, especially at night when the events of the day are over and I have nothing to do but think about them. Through this time, though, it has become clear to me that things on this earth are so ephemeral, so trivial. It is when I feel like this that I realize God is the only one I can really latch onto, and connect. He holds on.

On the heels of this observation, I want to share something I wrote a while ago. It is rather melancholy and somewhat poetic, which is a little unlike me - it is definitely new territory.

Today my day was black and white. I looked desperately for color, but couldn't find it. The sun was shining, but it only made things visible, it did not make them glow with golden warmth. The trees were not green, their blossoms not snowy white and blushing pink. The purple hair on the girl who sits across from me on the bus every morning; the girl with the red backpack; the guy with the orange mo-hawk, the interior of the bus itself with its neon seats; all these images met my eyes today devoid of all color. I saw them in black and white and shades of gray, with only the memory of the vibrancy that used to fill those images. Even though the memory of color was there, it was as if the color had never existed at all. The sky was clear, but it was only that - clear. I was chilled today - but it was warm outside. I am not bitter, and I am not depressed. My day was just black and white today. Everything seemed empty, ghost-like, hollow. I wonder how long it will take to paint the color back in.

Third Party Endorsements Are A Good Thing

2008-02-17T00:00:00.000-08:00

Jack Johnson released a new album on February 5th. First of all, it's good. Secondly, it's nothing extremely out of the ordinary for him, but in my opinion, it's just more good, solid Jack. For those who are critical of his lack of evolution in style, I say, why do you like him in the first place? Because it's Jack. If he sounded different, it wouldn't be Jack. This CD incorporates a slight variation of sound, while remaining classic. It's a little reminiscent of the Curious George soundtrack, which was definitely a different feel than his previous three albums. It's neat to hear some of his songs that are obviously about his wife, or his kids. My favorite songs on the CD so far are: "Monsoon" and "Hope." I also like "Sleep Through the Static" (the title song) and "Adrift." The song "Angel" is very sweet (as in awww, he wrote that for his wife) and right now I feel like I identify with the song "All At Once." Oh, and "Losing Keys" is a great song. With a song title like that, how can you not want to listen to it?

A few lyrics that immediately stuck out to me:

"I wanna take the preconceived out from underneath your feet." (All At Once)

"Show me that there's more than the meantime" (Monsoon)

"I've been losing lots of keys lately, I don't know what that means, but maybe I'd be better off with things that can't be locked at all." (Losing Keys)

"There's still so many things I want to say to you, but go on..." (Go On)

"When will these ideas really be my own?" (Adrift)

"Your voice is your own I can't protect it" (Adrift)

You all should listen to his new CD, "Sleep Through the Static." It also was recorded using only solar energy, just so you know...an interesting fact, I thought.

Mixed Emotions: On Anticipating the Future

2008-02-09T00:37:00.000-08:00

"Then the time came when the risk it took to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom." - Anais Nin

The promises of the future charm me, yet once I am enticed by them, I hear them snicker at me behind their veils that promise success and contentment. I want to change and grow, I want to stay the same. I am excited, I am scared. I am elated, I am terrified. I think I can't handle it, I know that I can. The thing I despise most about this whole process of change is the switching of emotions that happens daily, hourly, almost moment by moment. It is on the front of my mind, it is at the back of my mind, it is on the bottom of my mind, it is on the top of my mind. It's on the side, in the corner, in the middle, over, under...it is always on my mind. No matter what else flows through the matter of my brain, that is always there, always there, always there. Like a constant drip, like the sun - always rising, like the memory of a loved one gone, like the promise of something better, it is annoying, refreshing, lonely and hopeful. It is all these things separately, all at once. And so I will always be learning to adapt to the ever looming prospect of...change. It is always there, nerve-racking at first but almost always worth it in the end - for there is always something new to learn. Most of the lessons life gives are age-old, and worth the process it takes to learn them, even if they hurt.

Some Thoughts to Clear My Head

2008-01-31T23:54:00.000-08:00

I like to think of myself as an "early adopter." This means that I am in the 13% of the population who catches onto things soon after the 2 1/2% of the population, the "innovators", make it appealing. I like others to test the water first, then I step in soon after I see they don't immediately retract. Not often do I fall into the 68% of the population, the majority, who follows suit because "everyone else is doing it." Sometimes I do find myself in the 16% or so of the population deemed the "laggards", who wait around to catch onto something until I really cannot think of a reason not to. This puts me either on the front end or the tail end of things most of the time and I don't know what that means - or if it reflects on me a certain way - it's just an analysis of how I operate. All this to say, when it comes to blogs, I most certainly fall into the laggard category.

I have never been against blogs, like I was against myspace or facebook before I caved (I was also a "laggard" in that instance). I guess the idea of a personal blog just scared me, because I feel that up until now, my rantings like this have been confined to my journal and visited by my eyes only. While it is a release to write things out in my journal, there is something even more freeing about posting my thoughts, knowing others will read them. There is something beautiful about exposition, transparency.

The thing that spurred the sudden birth of this blog of mine, was a phone call I received earlier this evening. My mom called to tell me that my grandma's cancer has spread from her kidney to her bones. My grandma has been fighting cancer on and off for the majority of her life. Her most recent diagnosis was a tumor in her kidney. The doctors said they could remove her kidney, but that would lower her kidney function from its current 50% to about half of that. (I think around 30%.) She had a CT scan, to determine how far the cancer had spread in her kidney. That's when they discovered that it had spread to her bones. Even after my family's extensive experience with many different forms of cancer, it still feels foreign to talk about. I don't know much about bone cancer, or how it's treated, but I know it involves chemotherapy. In my mind, bone cancer sounds much worse than any kind of organ cancer. Bones can't be removed, and that scares me. I don't want my grandma to have to go through chemotherapy, because she has survived seven different forms of cancer already! She has been through chemotherapy, radiation and surgeries multiple times. Isn't seven times enough? Does there really have to be an eighth?

When my mom relayed this news to me over the phone tonight, my reaction surprised me. I cried. I cried hard. My mom didn't know what to say. I didn't know what to say. Sometimes there is nothing to say. Then my mom said "I'll let you talk to grandma" and before I could respond, I heard my precious Grandma Ruth's voice on the other end of the phone, reassuring me that everything would be OK. "God has given me peace, Karen, and it's not time to give up hope," she said.

The thing that hurts the most for me tonight is that I could not be there with my family as they were dealing with this news. I could not give my grandma a hug and spend time in her company as she faces the looming prospect of a major surgery followed by dialysis and chemotherapy. I could not help fix dinner and do the dishes, do the practical things I longed to do to help in any way I could. All I could do is pray, so that is what I did.

In my moments of prayer, two verses came to my mind. One from Exodus 14:14 which I read today. It says "The Lord will fight for you, you need only to be still." Also the verse that says "Be still, and know that I am God." When we have no human control over a situation, how comforting it is to know that we have a God who is fighting for us.