What is this?

On the way home from Mexico all I could think about was how amazing it would be to finally be back in my apartment with all of my gadgets and gizmos. I couldn't wait to return to 'civilization.' Now that I'm here though, I find myself at a loss. 

Having gone a week without television I tried watching something or other and found my thoughts wandering. After checking my e-mail for a minute, my computer bored me. (I realize that I'm blogging on it, but that's different.)

I'm finding myself missing Mexico, and the lack of distractions. Everything was simpler down there, I didn't have to to worry about Seminary App follow-ups. I didn't have papers to write, or e-mails to check. My biggest concern was getting the house done and deciding if dinner was edible or not. (Which it always was.)

I find myself not wanting to go back to the hustle and bustle of everything that I have to do in the next month before graduation. I'm actually nervous about going back to school tomorrow. (Which might be at least partially connected to my relative lack of hair) 

It feels like every year when I get back from this trip I question our way of life. Last year it was our obsession with the latest and greatest. (Which my friend's were quick to to point out that I am guilty of it as much if not more than the next person.) This year it feels different though, it's not about the material pieces of my life, but the very core of it; what makes me tick. It's not a lack of sabbath, (which I take fairly regularly), but the very speed at which I live my life.

On another note, now that I've shed a few tears in the last few weeks it seems the floodgates have opened. During the sharing time at the end of the work in Mexico people were sharing about what the experience meant to them and I found tears flowing freely.

One youth talked about how when her parents divorced she decided to divorce religion. She came on the trip just because her friends had and thought it might be fun to hang out, but during the sharing she told us that this week had renewed her faith in God.

And I shed tears

A dad talked about how much this week had meant to him, to share it with his daughter.

And I shed tears

Another youth brought up the quote by Mother Teresa about how 'what we do is but a drop in the ocean, but without it the ocean would be one drop less.'

And with both joy and pain, I wept silently in the back of the group

I don't get it, why now? Why are my walls tumbling down around me? There was a time when I couldn't cry at anything, no matter how painful. And now, now I get emotional about the little things. I don't get it...

Spring Break...

I have to say, this spring break has been one of the best and most eye opening of my life. It started off fairly discouraging, I got into a 15-Passenger Van and drove/rode all the way down first to Redding, then Bakersfield then Mexico.

There's something about being in a car for 20 hours that is just miserable, particularly when you are surrounded by horny, drama ridden teenagers. We finally make it all the way down there set up our tents and begin to reacquaint ourselves with the orphans.

I've been to Mexico before, and seen the poverty and the people however something about the recent changes in my life made it seem as though I was seeing everything for the first time. As I rode along, the reactions and chatting of the people around me made me feel like I was on a safari. I actually started to get sick to my stomach as the other individuals in the vehicle started snapping photographs of the surrounding countryside and making comments like "how cute" or "gross, look at that mess."

On Sunday we finally got the semi trailer unloaded and the materials distributed to the work sites. Because it was easter we'd gotten a late start and decided it best to actually start construction in the morning.

Monday we wake up early and drive to the worksite (my site was about 25 minutes away) We were immediately beset with problems. The foundation wouldn't get square, the person cutting the lumber for the first wall kept being off by an inch or two. Things were not going well at all. At the end of the day we were well behind the other two houses and feeling discouraged.

Tuesday we started even earlier, hoping to catch up but things started going downhill even more. One of the leaders on the site was feeling nauseous and went back to the camp part way through the morning. We continued to have alignment issues with walls and roof trusses. Right after lunch I started feeling ill, it was weird because it didn't feel like heat sickness. (It was 96 and sunny) I sat around most of the afternoon, got sick a couple times and didn't start feeling better until it was time to leave.

Wednesday is our last day of construction, we had to be done by 4, and there was no way we were going to meet that deadline on our own. (A couple more people have fallen sick at this point) A number of people from the other two sites showed up and worked with us, eventually bailing us out of the trouble.

At this point in the week I was feeling very discouraged, down and just generally not happy about the whole experience.

Then came the house dedications and the handing over of the keys. Something happens when you hand over the keys to a families first house that makes all the stress fall away. Something about the way the leaders offer prayer, and the families start crying. I even started crying when the family that I'd worked alongside opened the door to their new home and went inside for the first time.

Every year the dedications get more emotional for me, and every year I think they can't get even better, but they do. All of the unhappiness and stress of the week melted away and I remembered why we do what we do. Somehow God reaches into the whole mess and makes everything right. Even when we think that everything has gone with a project, at the end it is still a quality new home for a family. It is a place that they can call home that isn't made of cardboard walls.

It renewed in me my drive to work to right the wrongs in the world, to work for bringing God's kingdom and to bring God's justice on earth. There is nothing like it, the Joy of God.

There will be more as I unpack the experience, but for now that is all.

It's gone.

That pretty much sums it up... My luscious locks are locks no more. They are however, still luscious. My good hair cutting friend did an amazing job, someday I'll post a picture. When I figure out how.

My luscious locks

So, within the next few hours my hair that I've been growing for a year and a half or so will be gone. Shortened. I don't know about that, my hair has been a part of me for so long. (ha, long) 

I imagine it will be out of this world to not have my hair blowing in the wind anymore, getting frizzy when it rains. 

It means that I'm that much closer to going to Mexico, and that much closer to Cambodia. 

It means that I won't get called a lady anymore by people in stores. (Blech, Starbucks)

It means that I won't be quite so memorable to waitresses at North Bank.

I  think that it's good, but it still terrifies me.

Genocide

The Mission Team that I'm a part of watched The Killing Fields this afternoon. Remarkably powerful and thought provoking. There was one scene that caught me particularly off-guard though, especially mine and others' response. It was the scene when Dith Pran is just escaping from the Khmer, and he's walking through a bog. He stumbles and falls, finding himself surrounded by hundreds of skeletal corpses. 

My first reaction was, nothing, at all. Another member said, "gross." My reaction quickly turned to sickness, both at what I was seeing and at our responses. More than hundreds, if not thousands, of corpses those were people. People who had families and lives and really aren't all the different from you or me. 

And I barely gave it a second thought. 

Are we so desensitized by the media that we no longer feel when faced with atrocities? Are we so used to the horrible things that go on in the world that we no longer react?

I got to wondering how many people were killed in the Cambodia genocide. Estimates range from 1,700,000 to 2,300,000 men, women and children. 

Right now there is another genocide going on, in Darfur. The local government claims 9,000 people have been killed, the UN claims 200,000 people. Other human rights organizations have pegged the number at closer to 400,000.

Violent deaths in the Iraq War have been estimated at between 600,000 and 1,100,000 people.

It saddens and sickens me...

Peace Parades

Well, I had an interesting experience today as I drove home from church. I was sitting at the corner of Hilyard and 11th, waiting for the light to turn green so I could cross and pull into my parking lot when two police on motorcycles pulled in front of me. I was confused at first, but then as I looked east I saw a giant line of people walking down 11th.

It was a group of hundreds of people protesting the war in Iraq, with signs and everything. Normally I would have been all for it, no questions asked, but I had to pee very, very badly.

About 10 minutes later it finished, but during that time I made a few observations.

1) The guy in front of me was a jerk, he was flipping all the people the bird. The protestors responded with their own hand gesture, but one that involved two fingers and a lot more peace and love.

2) Most other people seemed to be patiently waiting it out, which surprised me. I think that shows a certain receptive-ness to the idea of peace.

3) It gladdens my heart that people care enough about not killing people that they will walk around for hours with giant doves on their shoulders.

I also had a kind of neat experience at church today. I sent out the support letters for Cambodia last week to all the church people. This morning I was affirmed by 15-20 people that received my letter, and most all of them let me know that they had sent a check in. One guy even said that he wanted to send in more general funds to help everyone going on the trip, I need to talk to Elizabeth and find out how he can do that. 

It feels like God is working.

I had an even further revelation Saturday night. My boss was freaking out because a number of pieces weren't falling into place for the trip to Mexico on Thursday. Without thinking I reached out and put a hand on her shoulder, which turned into a hug. While that might seem like a small thing, touch is something that I've struggled with for a long time. I've been uncomfortable with it, sometimes to the point of awkwardness. 

I've been trying to overcome that particular obstacle for a few months now, it appears that I'm getting there. A year ago I can't imagine voluntarily hugging anyone, and here I am doing that now. 

God is good.

Senioritis

I've got a paper that's due at 9:30 in a class that I don't care about. I haven't started it, and I don't know when I will. I feel no motivation to actually do anything for that class. Also it's Geography, all that we do is watch a 20 minute video (in the 90 minute class) and then leave. 

Blech.

Also, I don't know about mornings. It's only 9 and I've been awake far too long.

Tears...

I was reading the blog of a friend, who was describing a situation on campus a while ago that arose around a party. While I was reading it I started to get the achy feeling in my chest, my eyes began to moisten. Before I knew what was happening I was reading the blog through tears falling down my cheeks. 

I've been trying to unpack why that happened, it is not as if students getting drunk is a new idea to me. I think a big part of it is that I'm beginning to allow myself to admit to the feelings I have, and embrace them instead of simply burying them. 

Also, I'm beginning to lower my emotional defenses. I don't know why, but for some reason the walls that I've built up are coming down around me. Where I used to respond with no feeling, or inappropriate feeling I feel real ache. When I think about the way the students are behaving, it occurs to me that that's who I was not all that long ago. And I hear the stories of what they're going through and wish that there was another way for them. That they might not have to experience some of the same pain I did.

That maybe explains a little bit of why that post affected me, it doesn't really explain why I'm getting more emotional lately. I don't know. I don't know where it's going and how I'll get there. I suppose I curious to find out though.

Talk...

I struggled a lot with what to blog about tonight. A friend of mine pointed out that I've been lagging a bit, and I agreed so I felt that tonight would be a good night to post.

It's been on my heart (I thoroughly dislike that phrase, but it's appropriate I think) lately that too much of what people do is talk about God and God's people. I sit in my class on Job (amazing class by the way) and we talk about suffering in the world, both abstractly and in concrete stories. And yet I fear that that is where we stop, I hear very intelligent people come up with very smart ideas and they write them down and people in other parts of the world and people in our own part of the world die and suffer.

A friend of mine has told me that in order to be a good pastor you must first be a theologian, otherwise "what you talk and preach about is bullshit." (His words, not mine) I think that before that though, you need to love people and act on it. We aren't called to sit around and talk about ideas, we are called to put an end to suffering for all of God's children.

Right now women in Bolivia are prostituting themselves because they think it's the only way to survive. Children in Cambodia are selling their virginity at the age of 12 for $150. People of all ages are being systematically exterminated in Darfur. Thousands of people are dying in Africa of AIDs. Hundreds of teens in the US are committing suicide because they think no one cares about them. A handful of students at Northwest Christian College are getting dangerously drunk because they think it's the cool thing to do.

In classrooms people are arguing about whether Jesus said "I am the Light of the world" or "You are the Light of the world." Students can't decide if they like systematic or process theology. They are stressing out about how what order the events fall in the Old Testament so that they can pass the test that's coming up.

I find myself getting caught up in the chatter, in the discussions. I'm not saying that it's all bad, without discussion in community we can come up with really funky ideas. Still, I find myself torn between a call to engage my mind and grow intellectually, and to go out and try to increase the quality of life for God's children. What do we do? 

Emotional???

So, in the past week or so I've found myself being affected by "emotional" things a lot more than normal. I think it started when I read the bit about the child trafficking in Cambodia, though it may have begun before then. 

I was just listening to the sermon at First Christian on Sunday and I found myself fighting the urge to tear up as he talked about the conflict in Jerusalem. On Sunday at the Cambodia meeting we were talking about how we were beginning to "gel" as a group, and that started to get me a little watery eyed. 

I don't know about all this, I've prided myself on my ability to be fairly level-headed and yet I find myself falling apart. I sit at home trying to read for some class, I begin thinking about whatever and I start getting emotional.

Am I just getting stressed out, without knowing it? Is school affecting me that much? Is it something else? 

It is different though.

Blech

I'm afraid that I don't like the turn that the Democratic Primary is taking. Instead of focusing on positive aspects of themselves, they are beginning to tear down each other. It actually makes me sick that this is what politics has become, simply who is less horrible. 

It seems to me that ideally politics should be about who is the best candidate, not who is the "least worst." Does that makes sense?

I don't think it's unreasonable. 

Also, I don't like how Clinton is the one who instigated these attacks, how she is trying to making Obama look bad.

Obama is quite possibly the most intelligent politician I've ever listened to, Clinton lies and tries to twist reality for her own gain.

She needs to just drop out now, and stop splitting the party.

So, this morning my Geography class ended after 15 minutes of watching a movie. (More on that later...)

When I got home I decided to Google Cambodia and see what popped up, as I'll be heading there in just a couple months. One of the first articles to show up was http://japanfocus.org/products/details/2687. Stories like these tear me up on the inside, that this kind of pain goes on in the world. It tears me up even more to think that I'll be heading there in just a couple months, be in the same City where this "riverfront" area is, and yet I won't be able to do anything to fix the situation. I won't be able to ease the pain of these children who are being exploited in the some of the most horrible ways possible. 

I actually got teary eyed as I read it, which isn't something I do terribly often.

It hurts my heart.

Today was a good day

Today was a very good day. I skipped a very boring class and instead went with a friend to pick up some baby chickens to deliver to another friend; which was amazing.

I was worried that my spiritual direction session was going to go badly and instead turned out to be amazing, as it was a celebration of all the good things God has done recently.

I am privileged to be a part of a discussion group that tonight had one of our best discussions yet, we set the stage for next week which may top even this week.

It was Sunny today, not an altogether common occurrence for this place at this time.

Today was a very good day.

An old sermon...

So in our mission trip meeting today we talked about the effects (positive and negative) of short term mission trips. I did a sermon last year on just this subject, I'd post it here but I can't figure out how to make text "paste."

Here's the link though.

New living room arrangement

So, after two years my roommate finally decided that it was time to change from our "temporary" layout that we created when we first moved in. We shifted the orientation of the whole room 90 degrees clockwise, which has done a couple things.

1) It's made the room feel more like a niche, as the living room is it's own area instead of centering on the main flow of "traffic" from the front door to the back of the apartment.

2) It's made the room feel a lot bigger, from the couch you can see into the kitchen a bit, which opens up the area.

It makes me curious how many other areas I go into every day that could be made more comfortable simply by reorganizing.

I will mention that there is an incredible amount of stuff that builds up under a couch when it's sat there for a while. Also, that trying to move all of the cables for the sound system and television is a pain and makes you back hurt.

Oh another note entirely, I'm going to the main meeting for my Mexico mission trip in a couple hours. I can't believe that I'm going to Mexico for Spring Break, Yakama for Memorial Day and Cambodia after graduation. I wasn't really planning on doing most of these things, in fact at the beginning of the school year I had in mind to not do a mission trip this year. 

And yet there is a sense of "rightness" about these trips, as though going really is what I should be doing. 

I'm excited.

Sunshine

I've come to realize that I am a creature of the sun. When the sun breaks through the clouds (not an altogether common occurrence here) my mood is lifted and I enjoy being social and going out doing stuff. When it is dreary though, and overcast and blah, I find myself spending more time inside. Not just inside walls, but being more internalized and less "out there." 

I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing, but just a discovery that I've made in recent months.

Speaking of self-discovery, I've been perusing my old blog posts from back in the day. I spoke on the phone with an old friend from High School who I hadn't spoken to since we graduated, he observed that even over the phone I seemed less keyed up and more laid back than when he knew me in High School. At the time I just sort of shrugged it off, however having read my blog from back then I'm beginning to think he may have a point. 

In many ways I'm not at all the person I was then, it wasn't a change I sought (though in retrospect I would have) but it's still a change that happened. It's almost enough to make me wish I'd been more consistent at blogging over the past few years, so I could get a more full view of my personality changes as they happened.

Interestingly enough, according to Meyer's(sp?)-Briggs I'm still ENFP, which is what I was in high school. I'm not sure what to make of that.