Planning a Wedding with Divorced Parents

"God's not finished with you yet...he will never forsake or leave you." 

It has been a beautiful and a tough year of life.  So many wonderful things have happened.  I am preparing to marry the most wonderful man on the planet who is more patient than a saint, my sister and her husband had a handsome and healthy little boy, my medical school journey is progressing and has been encouraged by so many, my brother graduated from college with honors, my other sister got an amazing job...

And in the background of it all, my parents officially divorced after more than 30 years of marriage. 

Some people don't think divorce affects kids as much when they are adults.  Maybe they're right, but I can say it has been the most heartbreaking thing I have had to process so far on this life journey, even beating out the loss of my whole church community a few years ago when my dad had to publicly confess why he was being fired to the congregation he pastored, followed by the foreclosure and loss of the home I grew up in, the one I imagined I would bring my children to when we visited their grandparents.  

Some people have wondered why I have been engaged for a whole year without getting married.  I guess in the Christian world, that signals a red flag.  What people can't see, the behind the scenes stuff, is that for someone already prone to depression, grief has a way of taking me out for quite a while.  My fiance has spent many evenings holding me when I couldn't stop crying because of the way my family dynamic has changed, the way so many dreams have changed, including the desire I once had to help my parents in ministry.  Now there is nothing to help.  Rebuilding a life requires a lot of patience with yourself.  

I started going to a professional counselor to help me dig out of the pit of hopelessness, and she is incredible, but that doesn't change the fact that healing takes a whole lot of time and doing pretty much anything, much less planning a wedding or studying for the MCAT, can feel impossible.  There was a time when I had to literally make a pact with myself that I would keep living.  If you've never dealt with mental illness, this probably seems dramatic, but for those who have, the compassion I have for you is so huge.  

The unraveling of my family and the loss of community has caused me to realize just how much my identity has always been wrapped up in what others think of me.  Now, slowly, I am working on building my sense of self, developing my own thoughts on things, instead of being a stereotypical co-dependent pastors kid whose job is to make others happy.  

I hope that by the end of this 30th year of life I will be in a stronger place, that I will start to notice the beauty all around me again, and that I will start writing again with honest words. I want to live authentically without being a victim, and above all, my hope is to be a friend and warm place to all those who have felt the sting of rejection and being misunderstood.  

  

Ending a Decade

This is the last year of my 20s.  Some days I still feel like I am 10-years-old again, climbing trees and daydreaming.  Other days, it feels more like I am well into my later years of life, skipping several decades with enough story and adventure and loss to fill a lifetime. Most days I wake up aware of the ticking clock of my existence, yet by the end of the day I look back on how much time was wasted on ridiculous escapes like social media and fear and wishing I was someone else or somewhere else, instead of  showing up to my own life and treating the time I've been given on this earth as sacred and something that matters greatly.  It's really quite sobering.  I wonder what it takes to be consistently intentional. I wonder if there is a mindset that is deeper than laziness that often causes me to give up or underestimate my own worth-- deep down maybe the struggle is with codependency and people pleasing, which is an exhausting battle.  I often give into my deep fear of failure, of being exposed as someone who is incredibly lacking, and instead of fighting I go and I hide.  

Yesterday I was putting on a pair of jeans that have grown tight in this new year.  In the midst of an intense move, job changes, applying for medical school, trying to sort out where I will move if Trump becomes President, I have gained weight.  All the fluctuations and how I feel out of control when it comes to my own life got me thinking about how to rightly motivate myself to want to eat well and exercise again after an intense year that has left me apathetic towards my own health.  One thing I know--wanting to be healthy in order to fit a status quo and look good externally to a world that changes its opinion like the wind changes direction is not going to get me into a good head space.  Americans seem to find so much status and worth in things that are temporary-- where we live, what car we drive, the job that consumes all of our time, the size of our pants, the clarity of our faces.  Things that we think are so secure, yet can be lost in a second. We feel superficially good when others notice and applaud our outside success. Soul sucking is the best way I can describe that grind.  The freedom comes when actions are the product of an internal place that knows its true worth, recognizing that material things should be held loosely.  Lately the loss of the last three years have had me confronting my own motivations- -the way I so often get sucked into living my life for others.   Do I want to be healthy in order to get an applause for my figure and discipline, or is my motivation more long term-- wanting energy for the kids I hope to one day have and for the mountains I want to climb and for the clinics I want to start and for all the learning I want to keep doing, which requires a healthy and clear thought life.  Do I want to become a doctor so that the people who have spread rumors about my family will see that I (we) are actually somewhat functional-- or is it because I feel called to be a healer, moved by the realities of medical care inequalities, heartbroken but hopeful for the future of medical breakthroughs and the care of the vulnerable and forgotten?  

  There are a few things on my list of "what I want to do before I'm 30".  Some are adventurous, others practical: take the MCAT, start medical school, go hang gliding, start writing a fiction book (something I've always been scared of), but the biggest thing I want to confront is my own heart motivations.  I want to walk into a new decade with a sense that my life is not defined by how the world measures success, and I want to end this decade that's been so full already with an overarching theme of these 10 years teaching me so much about the need to prioritize caring for my own heart and keeping that space uncluttered and free. 

New Keys

Dedicated to the lovely Lily Chi, who always encourages me to keep writing.

____

No man, no land, no task for my hand ever soothes
I stay restless for you
All I am was made for you and no other will do
So I stay restless for you. 
-My Epic

____

I’m typing from an almost empty room in the home where I grew up, staring out into our backyard as the family dog, who we all believe is practically human, chomps away at a bone.  He’s in his happy place and I am glad.  That backyard has been his paradise and the only existence he’s known-- he’s been the king of its white fenced borders, making sure in his sweet Golden Retriever way that all who enter know who is in charge.  

This is one of his last nights to roam this particular plot of land.  It’s my whole family’s last night to walk through the halls and up and down the steps that lead to the rooms that we’ve all grown to know so well-- the weird light switches whose quirks we know without even thinking, the layout that we could walk through with eyes closed, the secret hiding spots we carved out as kids playing hide and seek.  We moved in on my 10th birthday, all six of us curled up in sleeping bags and warmed by the fireplace, settling into a beautiful new part of the story. My mom loved the gas stoves that worked even in the worst storm.  My dad loved the pool.  I loved all the trees I could climb, where I could make believe and read and dream.  It was this home that I returned to after my first trip to Nicaragua.  It was where I journaled about all the love I felt for the people I met and this country that somehow felt like home, even after just one visit.  It was in my room in this house where I first started experiencing the presence of God and where my heart started to feel a deep desire to be of some use in the world, bringing at least a little light and laughter into darkness.  

I didn’t know that my own heart would first have to experience darkness and a sense of homelessness--losing the things I'd grown to know so well over the years. 

I moved away for the first time at 17, but it was still home--still the place where my friends could come to play and the church family my parents pastored could come to connect and fellowship.  These walls hold so many memories.  They contributed to the making of so many friendships...and sheltered the tears of sadness over those that didn’t last.

I didn’t know as a young child that my parents would both lose their jobs on the same day, causing the house to go into foreclosure.  I didn’t know that something in their hearts wouldn’t stick together like they planned when they started out thirty-one years ago.  I didn’t know then how addiction could change brain chemistry and personality, impacting everyone. I didn’t know how ministry, however noble, could create unhealthy and oppressive burn-out.  I didn’t know that church would become a traumatic place instead of a healing place in my heart for a time. I didn’t anticipate not being able to one day bring grandchildren to their grandparents’ home,  where I would show them all the secret spaces in the place where I grew up while telling them about all the grand adventures of my childhood. 

My reality is so different than what I imagined at 10, yet I believe that in the midst of the loss, the unnecessary is slowly getting stripped away.  One thing I don’t want to lose is my child-like wonder.  Depression has a way of grinding away at awe. I don’t want to lose the hope that the earth is just waiting for majesty to be discovered and unearthed, like a treasure hunter out on the beach with a metal detector, knowing that somewhere on the endless miles of sand there is something incredibly special and worth the search.  

I’m now 29 and a little more aware of loss and grief and struggle, but also of unexpected new starts with nothing left to lose. There’s a lot of courage available in that particular set of circumstances.  There’s a lot more comfort to be found now in all of my questions not always having answers and sometimes just leading to more questions, and hopefully, ultimately, a sense of peace and surrender.  

Soon the last of the items will be cleared out and the door will be closed and the locks changed.  Our keys will no longer work. Our dog will get used to a new home that has no yard, forcing his family members to explore the surrounding area. And we will embrace the new and live in awe once again, basking in the incredible faithfulness of a Father who catches every tear and is present in every hard thing, cheering us on into a new place of abundance and joy unspeakable. 

Cheers and onward march to this new chapter-- to infinite grace and kindness and deep wells that sustain.  There are hard and sad things I am still processing and that need to find their way onto paper, but I trust that the future is one of freedom. 

Closed doors and open doors and right around the corner doors, each encounter filled with a lesson, an experience that grows and perfects.  The strain and the backward glances and the questions all start to dissolve as a heart encounters the Love that tears down walls and burns up boundaries, where every door feels like a blessing, even the closed ones, because they are framed inside of a love unconditional.  Where even the tears feel important because in some way they cleansed and left the heart open again to beauty.  

The forgiven much love much and there is nothing like a hug from the truly grateful.  There’s something about their eyes, how they shine deeper than the sorrow encountered on the journey.  How they let restoration and new dreams fill their hearts with a sensation beyond words.  A hope beyond all reason.  A joy unspeakable that takes hold and doesn’t let go.   They teach you something beyond words.  Something that they carry in their very being, their very DNA, that echoes loudly that loving well is what it all comes down to in the end.  

Sometimes I don’t know how to fight for another’s heart other than with words.  Other than with a poem, a phrase, a quote, a song.  Sometimes my heart feels the injustices around the world, and in searching for a way to show up and change things, all I find myself able to offer today is a prayer.  A prayer and a plan.  A plan that may take years of preparation and sacrifice, but the end is worth it.  Someone once told me that the freedom of many is on the other side of a singular person's obedience.  How obedient must I be to change a nation?  To turn the tide of history?  To turn back time and see the slave set free.  And again my heart feels the cry, “Whatever it takes.  It’s gonna be worth it.”  

Home to Unravel

I'm not sure if it is due to growing up in a christian environment where joy is more acceptable than sadness, or if it is just simply due to being human and avoiding vulnerability, but talking about depression is difficult for me.  The admission of such emotions always feels like defeat, where the only safe place to feel anything remotely broken is on journal pages that no one will ever read.

My view is changing quite rapidly. Depression scares me.  And I don't want to avoid talking about things that have me scared anymore.  It’s like your brain is stuck in darkness and you have no idea how to get the lights back on in there.  I need a brain engineer and mechanic.  Someone to go inside and figure out the faulty wiring and why all my neurons seem to be angry with me right now.

 As I hear stories from friends and acquaintances who have experienced large amounts of loss over the past few years, I realize that until there are safe places to be honest about feelings of deep sadness and grief, the healing won't come as naturally as it could and should to bring people to the other side, where they experience both joy and fresh perspective again.  And when I think about being honest about feelings, I don't necessarily mean using lots of words.  Just being given space and time to really feel all the feelings and not be viewed as forever weak.

Home seems to find a way of uncovering things I always run from with the next great adventure or idea.  But maybe I always return home because out of all the billions of people in the world and the hundreds of major cities where I could live and find community, there are only three people out of those masses who understand my story down to the gritty detail (those three people are my siblings).  Maybe they’ve interpreted things differently than me, but their experiences and mine are known to each other on a different level than when I try to get to know a friend.  And the truth is, all the friends I knew growing up knew me when my life was in survival mode and included an instinct to hide.  So whoever I am now is not the person I was then, and as much as I wish I could take those friends with me throughout life, it doesn’t seem probable or even possible.  

Maybe to survive I need to make peace with this place and with who I’ve been up to now so that I can become something new.  Which is why I don't want to run into the next adrenaline rush adventure until I know the tears I need to cry have been cried and the healing meant to come in this season has come.  

When I close my eyes, I want to again see open fields and smiling faces in all the nations where I want to one day travel.  I want to wake up wanting to be here.  Wanting to embrace a new day.  I want to feel again the passion of being alive and the fierce courage in waking up every day believing that my life matters just as much as the billions who occupy space and time with me.  That all of our lives matter.  That we aren't just organic chemistry and atoms strewn together.  We're the ones who get to breathe and feel and remember.  There must be a point to it all.  There must be a point to me.  To you.  To us.  Something powerful and wise and strong in the big picture of it all that includes us.  

So to those bordering the land of the living and of the dead, who have discovered the place called grief, may we be met with strength and vision to keep going and to find meaning while also feeling the missing.  Feeling the morbid and the unknown and the unfinished.  Feeling the lack of closure and hearing the questions that yell loud yet often remain in the heart, mind, body...unheard.  And may we start to realize that grief unprocessed is often heard in chronic disease, in stress, in depression and insomnia and panic attacks.  As a culture, I hope we begin to recognize the great need and strength found in giving people moments to be weak, to be honest with what hurts and let the healing come.  

May we give ourselves permission to sit down for a second (or as long as it takes), take a breath, regather energy at the cellular level, and regain hope.  

"Pry it open with your love/ it is steep, it is stone, such recovery/it has found what we orphaned/

...your love is known, I'm standing up on it."

 -Bon Iver

October, Welcome Back

After my birthday month, this may be my favorite month of the year.    There is something crisp and alive in October, especially as the mid-eastern part of the States begins to feel fall again.

The winds are welcome to blow through this whole place, through my whole heart, shaking off all the dead leaves so that new ones have a chance to grow after the cleansing freeze.

Ah seasons.  How much hope I find in the change.  In the fact that the earth rotates and the sun gets further and closer and we get the chance to find poetic meaning in it all.

Cheap wine, dessert made from a chocolate bar stuffed inside a day old butter croissant, a bed scattered with Rumi and my Bible that has barely been opened over the last few months and a journal with few entries even though its purpose was to document the past few months of life...

 and a billion thoughts firing all over the place in my brain, seeking for some sort of stilling.  That is what makes up my evening.  What's been making up my evenings for the past few months.

Some people disbelieve me when I try to tell them how depression has been a foe and friend of mine since before I hit my teens.  It's like a fog and a clarity all at the same time, and in a strange way its arrival at moments of my life feels like a dysfunctional comfort.  I've battled and surrendered often to an existential angst and sadness more often than people tend to believe, and I'm still learning how to ride the wave when it hits like a hurricane and no one seems to know how to reach me out in the water.

If I knew the pursuit of medicine was going to be such a challenge, I wouldn't have started the journey. That makes me grateful that the initial decision was made without seeing the future.  But reality and my track record pretty much convince me that even if I stuck with journalism and filmmaking, I would still be hitting depression turbulence.  It has nothing to do with my career choice.  It has to do with me and how I feel everything and how I go through the highs of wanting to change the world met with the lows of realizing how broken everything feels.  

There must be something good that comes out of all these thoughts.  I even want to believe that there is a reason for disappointments and dashed hopes.  Still waiting for that revelation and transformation.  In the meantime, thank God for Langston Hughes. And I'm sorry to all my friends to whom I have been unresponsive and absent.  I just haven't had any energy to even look at my phone on days.  I will return soon.  I can't promise that, but I feel it to be true.  Hopefully my sense of humor and wonder are on their way back as well.

Hold fast to dreams,
For if dreams die,
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.

Hold fast to dreams.
For if dreams go,
Life is a barren field
Covered with snow.

~ Langston Hughes

Big Eyes

I wonder about him.  About those big eyes -- how they drink in the world. When will they recognize the things not innocent?  The humanity of this place and how decisions create a certain way to the space that is different from the original.  Not bad.  Just imperfect.

 Still beautiful.  Still worth drinking in.

And I want to be wanted.  To be understood.  To have a heart known and chased after.  Yet fleeting infatuations and momentary obsessions seem like a high price to pay when looking at a long term self that's being made. Looking north but feeling tugs east and west.  Knowing deep down that the fleeting things will hurt and that pain and rejection can't be avoided, but that the lasting things will still call out to me even when crossing into detours.   And that faith in the calling out, that the voice will always find its way to remind me,  is what puts courage into the step.  It leaves the second guessing and the escape routes and the obsessing over Plan B and closed doors in the trash.  They don't matter when love is the motivation.  Because you can't get so far that you can't come back.  You can't go so deep that you can't come up for air.  Even when it feels that way.  Even when feelings of rejection try to steal your sense of dignity.  Your courage.  Your belief that you matter.  Even then the strength somehow finds you.  Urges you to believe again.  To keep going.  To not surrender forever to the weakness and doubt.

I want eyes like his.  Drinking it all in.  Fear gone.  Reservations gone.  Obsessions with being liked and understood gone.  Rejection's heaviness in the way it makes you feel like you are a small person who doesn't matter-- gone.

love drives you on

Physics is over!  Well, at least for a semester.  Celebration will involve lots of art: films, photography, writing, books...whatever I can do to feed my right brain!

As I was studying today before the final exam, I was freaking out over how I thought I knew formulas but they felt like they weren't coming together and questions like, "What if I fail?  What was the point of even moving here if I can't even pass this class?" were hitting me hard.

And then a thought stopped me in my tracks.  Well, more like a picture that found words and became a thought.

A memory came back to me. A memory of children-- children I've  had the honor to meet in my life in communities where education isn't readily available.

And my thoughts turned toward a little girl, one much like the girls I read about last year in a class I took regarding human trafficking.  A girl working insane hours every day of the week, all of her youth poured into another person's dreams.  In her situation, education isn't even an option.

Yet there I was, sitting with a laptop, surrounded by stacks of notes and a formula sheet that demonstrate three months of knowledge gained from getting to sit in a classroom in one of the greatest universities, surrounded by curious and hard working students.  With the opening of a tab and the click of a mouse, I have access to worlds of knowledge that can cause growth and expansion in my life.  That's my reality.  

The contrasting picture-turned-thought produced a reality check: whether I fail the exam or not, I am still finishing this semester with information that will stick with me forever, and I've grown in my understanding of science, which in turn has given me an even greater appreciation for life, seeing motion in deeper ways.

Education is a gift to be appreciated and valued--but not one that should be restricted. Doesn't the opportunity to learn make me in some way indebted to the girl who is giving her life unwillingly for another's dream?  There is a difference between a bond slave and slave.  The first has a choice, the latter does not.  She does not.  But what if I can make myself a bond slave to her?  What if she and I are connected more deeply than can be imagined, and what if the very nature of opportunity is meant to equip in order to give back, to give those without hope of rescue a chance? I can't help but feel that I have a responsibility to her.  A responsibility to take my studies seriously.  To see this time as a gift.  To recognize that training is a place of expansion, so that I can then go and use what I've gained as an offering to those who may never have a chance unless I both care and prepare.

 Love is a different motivator than ambition, but love still drives a heart to pay a price because the end result is worth it. And I want to learn Love in that way.  And I want to become love in that way-- to "turn our prayers into outrageous dares" as Jeff Tweedy would say.  To believe that my small life and your small life, and our small lives together, can really matter to the beautiful hearts in the world who don't yet know freedom.

So Glad You Exist

My mom is a sign language interpreter by profession.  Growing up, she placed a strong emphasis on non-verbal communication-- mainly body language and eye contact.  She taught my siblings and me that much is conveyed in the absence of words.

Currently I work in retail in a wealthier community in the Boston area.  Lately, I feel like I am a sociologist, observing the lifestyle of the entitled.  One thing that strikes me on a constant basis is how the tone a person uses and the way they make eye contact totally shapes an interaction.  Each interaction has its very own personality-- and there is a struggle I face each time I am treated rudely with how I will respond.  Will my response reshape the interaction in a positive direction?  Will I be proud of my response when I look back on my day?  Often my pride gets in the way of responding well, and instead I get short with the customer, thinking somehow my curt attitude will vindicate the ill treatment.

 However, when someone treats me kindly, acknowledging I am not just a cashier but indeed a person-- a person with goals, dreams, a brain -- something in me rises to the occasion, wanting to exceed their every expectation in return for their kindness.  Their kindness empowers me.

I'm a strong believer in the idea that even when someone is rude to you, you should not respond in kind.  There is something about love that chooses humility in such situations (which I often do not do).  But at the moment, I'm not wanting to write an essay on turning the other cheek. My thoughts are turned towards what kindness does to a heart.

I was walking home from work today and as a woman passed me,  she looked up from her carefully placed footsteps, treading wisely on freshly fallen snow, to catch my eye and exchange a smile.  That meant so much to me-- an acknowledgment of my personhood.  That I matter.  That the space I take up on the sidewalk is a beautiful part of her day, as her space is to mine.  That her existence is a wonderful thing. An exchange of strangers that validated how each of us is made up of the same set of bones, the same muscles, the same organs...that inside of us blood is running and a heart is beating and feet are moving to get us from one place to the next.  We may be in a different economic class, but we are not in a different human class.  We are equal.

I'm not sure why at 27 I am back in school, trying to go to medical school, unsure what will come of this journey, still wanting to write made up stories with characters that translate beyond words and into hearts but searching for a way to bring it all together.  I'm also not sure why at 27, lots of my friends are married, starting beautiful families, setting off on stable careers, but I am still a single wanderer who wants to live a life of meaning but is searching for what that exactly means within the grace that is on my life, all while working at a minimum wage job after going to college for four years, often having to depend on and receive the kindness of others.  I wasn't raised to believe that marriage is the answer to a girl's life and that finding a man is what defines your success or brings security, so I think that there is something in me that recognizes a longing for the companionship of another who gets my heart in a way no one else will on this great life adventure, but doesn't want it to be a savior from my current season--although I do look forward to the day when that piece in my journey comes. For now though, I want to live this season out in all its gore and glory, to feel it fully, as it leads to whatever is next on my journey and as it develops something in me that is focused and sure.

But where there are many things I'm not sure of, there is one thing I know for sure I want to do with my life, and it is this--
I want to look each person I meet in the eyes.  I want them to know I acknowledge them, that I am honored to meet them, that I celebrate the space they occupy.  I want the translation of my look to say, "You are beautiful and I am so glad you exist," regardless of their income, if they had a shower in the last week, if they live in the most beautiful house, or in a cardboard box.  Because there is justice found in our silent communication-- there is a power beyond words that restores dignity and offers a warmth that reaches deep into the soul.

shining eyes

"...but don't you ever apologize for the way your eyes refuse to stop shining. Your voice is small but don't ever stop singing."

-Sarah Kay


It seems fitting to write a blog on the eve of turning twenty-seven.  Twenty-six has been a good year.  It wasn't what I thought it would be, but what is?

It was a year of change.  Drove east from California, saw the Grand Canyon for the first time, stopped in beautiful Boulder, lived for a week in the Canadian woods with just a backpack, 14 ladies, and a canoe, applied to a program up in Boston, almost didn't want to get accepted so I wouldn't have to do any more moving.  But that didn't work out for me.

I live in Boston.  And I love it.

The other day I took the T to class and found myself listening to a (loud, I promise!) conversation between two students.  One studies at MIT, the other at Harvard.  At first I wanted to roll my eyes and tune them out, falling into an old judgment that all the undergraduate students at those schools are pretentious and arrogant.  But instead I found myself taken into a story one was telling the other about a friend.  This friend was a high school drop-out.  One day he discovered a lecture online about quantum physics, and it changed his life.  He started studying like crazy, and eventually this kid, who didn't even finish high school, found himself with an acceptance letter from MIT.  I found myself smiling when I heard that. There is something about passion that defies odds.  I can't help but believe that the passionate find a way even when things seem impossible...and they are usually the crazy ones who no one really thinks can pull it off.  Those will always be my favorite stories.

Sometimes I find myself looking at the stars, reminding myself that big dreams are not crazy and that God's love is strong and He is unapologetic about how excited He is for our lives.  I want to live in that reality.  In that kind of friendship.

Which brings me to the topic of friendship.  More than anything else, I feel like this last year has made me so deeply thankful for the genius of good friends.  I mean, I really lucked out when it comes to quality people in my life.  So if any of you read this, I just want to say thank you for being in my life.  I've learned so much about love, kindness, perseverance, laughter, joy....from all of you.

And here comes another year....

Remembering Mandela

Walked home from work tonight in rain that turned to hail.  Seems like a set-up for a bad mood, but instead it made me happy.  My thoughts turned to Nelson Mandela.  This world is already missing his beautiful soul.  Will my generation have leaders of his caliber?  Those who will hold onto what they believe about justice for all men, regardless of the cost.  Those who will choose forgiveness over and over again.  And here I am, wondering if I can actually handle eight more years of school to step into a dream.  Yet even if this journey I am on leads to a totally different door than what I was expecting, the truth still remains that the kinds of dreams that impact the world require sacrifice and hard work.  But the hard work doesn't have to be a burden.  It can be a joy.

Nelson Mandela, you will be missed.  Thank you for the lessons you taught humanity through the way you lived-- for your courage, your kindness, your integrity, your perseverance.

"We can change the world and make it a better place. It is in your hands to make a difference." --Nelson Mandela


 

Thoughts from Home

Woke up this morning to Rory licking my face. 

But how can you stay mad at a golden retriever? 

Being home has been a nice change of pace.  I realized how tired I really am and how much I need sleep.  It is amazing how once life slows down suddenly, even if for just a short time, all the exhaustion rushes into the rest.  Your body seems to be going overkill on getting the message across, "PLEASE slow down."  My body is finding a permanent spot by the fireplace, not wanting to move.

I am remembering the tension I felt when making the decision to move to Boston.  Wanting to stay, needing to leave.  Wanting to cling to what is safe, knowing I need to fly.  And so I turned off my over-thinking button and drove north.

And God smiles, I am convinced of it, when we step into the unknown.  When we say yes to the invitation of living out tall history on the earth. When we say yes to the now, which means a loud no is echoed into the past, where choices and legs of the journey try to disqualify.  I've found myself laughing more and more at those disqualifiers.  I just don't believe in them anymore.  What is life if not a defying of what shouldn't be possible.  Grace kisses brokenness and heals it if we let it, and that healing produces deep deep joy and wonder.  I know that as I watch my parents falling in love again.  I don't understand it.  A year ago they were headed to divorce.  Today they are laughing like little children together.  A mystery.  Grace.   

I learned something in one of my first physics lectures that changed how I see quest.  Sometimes to find motion, to determine direction, you have to take the individual parts apart and focus on one vector at a time.  There is an x direction, a y direction, and together they make up the trajectory.  There are times when I struggle with wondering how my love for journalism will ever come back into play in my life, but then I remember this truth.  It isn't and/or but both.  And that truth brings such freedom in the present--to be fully engaged and trusting in the now.  The things we hope for, we're willing to wait for, we hold onto.  What we hold onto shapes who we are in a profound way.  Even if certain hopes are never fulfilled, there must be something incredible that occurs in a waiting person's heart-- and not passive waiting , but the kind that is full of trust, expectation, vision, single-eyed.  

Steady hope. Lives becoming a beautiful offering.  I don't want to live a moment outside of the dance of knowing He fully delights in me.  All of me.  

His grace meets my uncertainties.

His wisdom my insufficiencies.

Ideas that Shaped Me.

It is 12:30 am.  I took a 10 mg melatonin a few hours ago and I'm still awake.  Story of my life.

The current solution to this predicament is to down a bunch of Halloween candy.  The sugar rush should have an equally strong reverse effect, right?  Hopefully one that involves lots of good dreams before my alarm goes off at 7 am and the studying of physics resumes, a full day of torque, momentum, hydraulics.  What could be more exciting?

Oh right.  A lot of things.

As a seasoned insomniac, I'm starting to notice that most of the time, the things that keep me up are ideas that I should probably start writing down.  And since technically I am still living out the first day of November, and everyone seems to be assembling thankfulness lists, I feel a need to write about being thankful for ideas that were passed onto me, shaping much of who I am today.

One of those ideas was from my mom, who told me to start writing in a journal one night when I was  in elementary school and couldn't sleep.  That suggestion became not just a discipline, but a salvation.  Those pages of words, capturing feelings throughout middle school, high school, college, and now into adulthood, were often the only blank spaces that gave me room to really be me.  When I couldn't find words, I could write until I found them.  Or didn't find them, but still found a sense of surrender, a restoration of wonder and balance and compassion for myself and others.  When struggling with deep anxiety, depression and just a general sense of being different from my peers when I was younger, there was a solace and a friendship in words, as well as in the stories of writers who inspire me to this day.

The other idea was my dad's idea to go to Nicaragua when I was just 12 years old.  That trip would end up being, without me realizing it at the time, one of  the most pivotal experiences of my youth.  That land got into my heart in a way that no other place has, and I've been to quite a few places.  There are days I still get transported back there through my senses connecting a smell, a taste, a sound, a feeling to a memory.   Going to other nations is an amazing gift, but going to one that is considered one of the poorest in the modern world will wreck a young heart.  You don't see the things my young eyes saw and not come back with questions of how your life can create more light.  How your life can become a prayer that answers a deep need.  And even more importantly, an understanding developed in my heart about how even in economic poverty, there are those who live with deep joy.  A joy from which I can learn.  Even with all my needs met, my heart too often lives in poverty and want, disconnected from the embrace of the Father and true, deep, abiding love.

"Let the beloved of the LORD rest secure in him, for he shields him all day long, and the one the LORD loves rests between his shoulders."


Deuteronomy 33:12



Boston is beautiful in the fall. 

I walk a lot now that I live here, which is something I enjoy.  On my walks, I find myself often enjoying the solitude of being alone, even when I'm in the middle of a large city full of humans.  There is so much to observe, to take in, to process on those solitary walks.  When I'm at home, I'm studying or distracted by other things, but it's when I walk that I get to clear my mind. 

Lots of mind clearing has been needed lately.  For one thing, I thought I'd overcome the perfectionist bug years ago when I fought through an eating disorder in high school.  I thought that I'd changed, somehow overnight shifting into someone who could care less about being perfect.  And in fact, I did grow into a much more free spirited individual, but I also didn't realize that I did that by partially removing myself from anything in life that I could interpret as a competition or a big challenge.   I stopped playing sports competitively, stopped caring about getting A's in school, stopped counting calories, stopped obsessively checking my weight.  And where some things got healthy, other things went down hill.  Like my confidence that I can actually do well in school.  That I can actually do well in life.  That I can do well without having to be perfect.  And now that I'm back in an academic world that is extremely challenging for me, I'm having to confront this odd tension of perfectionism and apathy/laziness...and get into a healthy place of confidence, excellence and a solid work ethic.  

There is also the addiction I didn't know I had to a role I've lived most of my life.  dahdahdah....

Pastor's Kid.  Two years ago my parents stopped pastoring, one of the biggest reliefs of my life.  However, in the process of trying to find a new church here in Boston, I noticed that I see church through the eyes of someone who has only ever been the child of parents in full time ministry.  And unless you have a similar experience to that, you won't really understand how it feels.  There is an odd anxiety that I feel when trying to connect with a new community of believers.  There is a suspicion I feel towards both leaders and congregants...and I am just beginning to acknowledge that I may not know how to be a healthy part of a church community until I confront my own addiction to ministry.  

Really neat things are happening too.  Like hanging out with my 8 year old cousins, getting the chance to attend class on a gorgeous campus with such deep, historical roots, living in a city that is full of college students (great inspiration for storytelling) and close to beautiful bodies of water, being able to easily go on scenic drives.  

I am learning to not let my heart get flat lined by the busy--to remember that the Father delights in me every second of the day, even when I'm cursing so loud over not being able to find a parking space in Cambridge because of a random event in the city.  (Yes, that happened.  Not the proudest of moments on my  part).  

I really have no idea what I'm learning right now in life because it is all so busy and still a bit overwhelming, but I look forward to finding more words and expressions for all that I'm experiencing both internally and externally.  

to be thankful.

to give thanks.

---

my uncle's good taste in music and his passion to make sure people are eating good food...and frequently.

my cousins' hugs.

my aunt's incredible wisdom and business sense.

boston in the fall.

parking spots on mass ave after 5 pm.

the old man who walks his dog while riding a bike.

the young man singing while biking through cambridge.

opportunity to learn.

sitting in a class where I can learn about motion...math applied.

food.  a place to live.  family close by.  warmth.  music.  a camera to capture moments.  calculators.  trail mix (it's cheap and kinda nutritious).  green tea.  coffee.  chocolate covered berries.  walking to and from work.  an ipod with good music.  shoes.  a coat.  clean water.  deoderant.  running water.  contacts, glasses.  pens. paper.  clear mind.

my old journals that remind me of my heart's journey, God's faithfulness, the worth of risk and the reward of a heart when it frees itself from things that keep it from going hard after Jesus.

FRIENDSHIP.  Oh my goodness, I have the greatest friends in the world.

Boston in the Fall

Recently I noticed many words in my vocabulary are spoken with an added definition of "hard" tacked onto their denotation.

physics--the branch of science concerned with the nature and properties of matter and energy, with movement. The subject matter of physics, distinguished from that of chemistry and biology, includes mechanics, heat, light and other radiation, sound, electricity, magnetism, and the structure of atoms. HARD.


traffic-- vehicles moving on a road or public highway. HARD.

parallel parking-- the parking of a vehicle parallel to the roadside. HARD.

Boston-- The capital and largest city of Massachusetts, in the eastern part of the state on Boston Bay, an arm of Massachusetts Bay. Founded in the 17th century, it was a leading center of agitation against England in the 18th century and a stronghold of abolitionist thought in the 19th century. Today it is a major commercial, financial, and educational hub. Population: 591,000. HARD.

                                                                          ***

My dad gets on the phone with me as I, close to crying, explain how I can't figure out where to park, will definitely be late for class, maybe I should turn around, I may not have enough quarters for the meter, I don't even know where the class is in the first place and it's dark out and I have no friends and the city is big.  Hard.  And he says take a deep breath.  He reminds me that life is bigger than that present moment, that present fear, that present shake in confidence.  

That was the first day going into Cambridge.  It took me an hour or more to park.  There were two men doing roadwork next to me, and they were the face of kindness in my panic, helping me figure out if I would get a ticket if I parked on Mass Ave for more than two hours.  They asked me if I was an Orioles fan.  I said yes tentatively (Red Sox territory), but they smiled, I smiled, they said, "Good.  They're a good team.  Good luck in class!" and I rushed off with them behind me, cheering for me to be victorious.  

Once I settled that, I struggled to find the class.  I was 45 minutes late for physics 1.  But I found it.  I pressed through.  I didn't think I had it in me to press through, but I did.  For most people, that may have been a typical day in their world, no problem, no struggle.  Just drive, park, walk to class.  For me, it was a confronting of multiple fears, and inside of that movement there was a coming of age evolution.  

The semester is now entering the third week.  The class is still hard.  It stretches my brain, calling on me to remember trigonometry, geometry, algebraic manipulations-- things I haven't used in years, and definitely didn't use while immersing myself in the world of journalism and filmmaking.  But here I am, not sure if the end will be "success" in terms of a brilliant grade, but confident that there is a different kind of success I'm walking into, and that the end is good.  

I know enough about the brain from books and articles to know that the brain has the ability to build new pathways.  And as I look at that spiritually, I know that as I embrace negative thoughts of defeat, it is like I am building a highway in my brain where my thoughts get stuck telling a certain kind of story.  Yet the renewing mind part of scripture keeps prodding at me, offering hope, but requiring discipline.  To take every thought captive.  To be serious about looking at what I'm thinking and ask, "Is this the story I want my life to tell?" and from there, adjusting to a thinking position that is full of faith, full of Kingdom. 

So those are highlights of my adventure so far.  I am looking forward to the weather that's already starting to change to fall.  I also found an awesome spot to kayak.  Now that's good for the heart.  

Off to another day of learning, growing.  Not sure where all this leads, but I'm learning to keep my thoughts victorious even in the middle of question marks and uncertainty.  

My mom and I took a  roadtrip this past weekend to seal off our last year of adventure, an adventure that led us on a roadtrip out to California, passing through beautiful South Dakota, Montana, Idaho, Washington, Oregon, and settling in Shasta County, CA, where the mountains and the culture brought such peace, healing, joy, friendship. 

And now that season ends with a forceful re-entering into school.  For me, last minute decisions seem to help me turn my mind off and "just do it", jumping into the water and knowing I will learn how to swim, even if the water is absolutely freezing.  Tonight I go to my first class in a year, Physics 1, where I have no idea if I will be able to handle the material and where I fear I will be surrounded by students with far more impressive academic backgrounds than myself.  I may be the only one who says, "Oh, I spent two years of my undergrad career on movie sets and in practice tv studios...and now I want to go into, um, medicine...."

So...

Boston, Boston, take me in...and Cambridge, please be gentle with me. ;)  

Here I am, ready for a new chapter, a coming of age, a fresh season.  Excited, overwhelmed, in shock, expectant...and completely in awe of the provision of God and the kindness of others as I've transitioned into this new thing.

Ten years from now, I will be thankful I took this step, regardless of how it turns out.  

"History says, Don't hope on this side of the grave.  

But then, once in a lifetime the longed for tidal wave 

of justice can rise up, 

And hope and history rhyme."

 -Seamus Heaney

The best experiences never let you go.

I've been back from the wilderness, more specifically Algonquin Provincial Park, for two weeks now.

Never have I done something as physically strenuous as this trip.  Fourteen women arrived at the park together, threw 40-50 lb packs onto our backs, put canoes in the water and set out to find a story, an adventure, a change of name.

To live simply has always been a lifestyle that's called to me, but often my attempts at living it out get cluttered and distracted (just take a look at my Mac desktop and you will be fully convinced of my disorganized tendencies).  Writers like Nouwen, Thoreau, Wendell Berry, Michael Pollan-- they all touch something in my heart that craves the minimal.  Maybe it's because deep down I am convinced that to really be effective in doing anything worthwhile on this planet and to impact humanity in some small way, with the short lease of life I've been given, it is essential to get rid of lifestyle excess.  There is a unique experience of grace and joy that comes when the unnecessary leaves.

In one week I'll be leaving for a large city, taking classes at a new school, working at a new cafe, navigating a new system of public transportation.  The trip I took into the woods was planned far ahead of any knowing of a pending move, yet it came at the perfect time, almost serving as a cleansing from all the craziness of the last two years. I went in need of courage, in need of fresh vision, in need of childlike wonder.  

As we set out on the water, I noticed how the fresh air filled my lungs, making breathing an act to pay attention to, remembering the miracle of each breath in, each breath out.  As I write this, I am remembering my Nanny and how she would have celebrated her 93rd birthday just a few days ago.  I am remembering how a year and a half ago, I sat in a hospital room on what would have been her ninety-one and a half celebration of life, and how in those early morning hours I had the honor of watching a beautiful soul take that final breath of transition that leads you into what the living will always see as a great unknown.  An unknown that raises questions that sometimes produce anxiety until you just learn how to trust-- until you learn how to value each breath as sacred, surrendering the why questions, surrendering the temptation to shape theology around brokenness and disappointments.

The first two days of the trip were difficult emotionally.  I found myself escaping into daydreams, which has been my tendency since childhood, searching for a safe place in my mind for warmth, security, the comforts of life, internet access, text messages.  I started thinking of all the things left undone back home, regretting my decision to go on such an intense trip when I had so many other things to get done. It produced anxiety as I struggled to be present in the moment, to fully immerse my heart, my mind, my body in the experience.

Yet something happened the third day, a crazy baptism of sorts.  I was able to fully transition into being where I was without a desire for escape.  What came from that transition was a clearing out of all the clutter in my mind, all the anxious thoughts, all the fears of failure and questions as to whether I have what it takes for the changes coming in my life.  I found myself, for one of the first times in two years, able to think confidently about my future, believing that even in the midst of such loss over the last two years, Love does chase us down with goodness and mercy every single moment of every single day.

So here's to a new beginning, a fresh start, new eyes, a new way of being.

Here's to now, to today, to this minute, this second...to learning how to breathe in deep.