Death Cab: What Sarah Said

Got an ipod for Christmas and have been listening to this song over and over:

I've heard it countless times before, but never really listened


And it came to me then
That every plan is a tiny prayer to Father Time
As I stared at my shoes in the ICU
That reeked of piss and 409
And I rationed my breaths as I said to myself
That I'd already taken too much today
As each descending peak on the LCD
Took you a little farther away from me
Away from me

Amongst the vending machines and year-old magazines
In a place where we only say goodbye
It stung like a violent wind that our memories depend
On a faulty camera in our minds
But I knew that you were a truth
I would rather lose than to have never lain beside at all
And I looked around at all the eyes on the ground
As the TV entertained itself

'Cause there's no comfort in the waiting room
Just nervous paces bracing for bad news
Then the nurse comes around and everyone lifts their head
But I'm thinking of what Sarah said
That love is watching someone die

So who's going to watch you die?
So who's going to watch you die?
So who's going to watch you die?

All for love's sake

I've been trying to wrap my mind around the Christmas story, Christ coming to earth, God incarnate and yet man. I always thought I understood how much he gave up, how low he really stooped, at least to some degree. I was reminded once again of how little I actually know. My pastor preached a sermon about the humiliation of Christ, which is easy to assume starts in the garden of Gethsemane, but he argued, begins from his conception in Mary's womb. God literally became nothing. He grew up in a town called Nazareth, a place noone would think the Messiah could come from. His earthly father was a carpenter, and he was born in a stable, probably not the nicest one either. How to understand this: that the eternal God became a nobody for us. As the great hymn goes:

Thou who was rich beyond all splendour,
All for love's sake becamest poor,
Thrones for a manger didst surrender,
Sapphire-paved courts for stable floor.
Thou who was rich beyond all splendour,
All for love's sake becamest poor...

Perhaps the reason why this really hit me this Sunday as I sat in church is that I have a fear of being nobody, of dying and nobody thinking my life was important in any way, of being forgotten by the course of history. This fear has been unusually strong recently and I've been battling it for a few months now. To think that Jesus became nothing and yet the temptation to be somebody was with him everyday. He was God after all, and people said of him, "what good can come from Nazareth?" I cannot imagine how difficult it must have been to continually humble yourself, to orient yourself to the Father without fail, to deny yourself an innate human desire to be the king he was.

And this is my calling...to be "content to fill a little space, if thou be glorified." There is contentment in knowing your place, and hope knowing that the Almighty God confined himself to his when he became a man. This Christmas I rejoice in Christ's willing humiliation for my sake.

running towards an end

Do you ever want to change but have no idea how to go about it?

That's how I feel in quite a few areas of my life right now. What's ironic is social workers are supposed to help other people do this. We're kind of like social architexts. We get to create plans, help to lay foundations, and hopefully, see a beautiful building at the end. But I'm beginning to wonder if this is even possible.

Sure, we can help people in little ways, but only if they're willing to recieve the services and act on them. However, actually helping them precludes us knowing how to help them. This is very scary to me. I am not a person that by nature knows how to solve problems. When I see people I don't instantly catalog all the things I could fix in my mind and know exactly how to go about that. It takes me a long, and I mean long, time before I begin to feel comfortable expressing or even thinking about how I would change another person. Sometimes I never get that far. I can usually come up with some shortcomings that a person has, but I don't usually find those shortcomings offensive or that they necessarily need to be corrected instantly. Those people that I do want to change significantly I tend to chalk up to personality difference and will assume it is my fault for not liking them.

None of these things are, I think, what the experts in my field would say are good to do, but the issue of solutions or resolutions to a problem is an important part of being a good social worker (at least it seems to me so far). I have absolutely no idea how to help with this. From what I know of myself I am a person that likes to be involved with the journey, to provide support, to listen and understand, but feedback is not necessarily my forte, nor is having a specific goal and achieving it. I can do it, but its usually pretty strained. A part of me doesn't want to emphasize the goal setting at all...not exactly sure why though.

So how to practice this...i guess that means that you will all be my guinea pigs... or should i be practicing it? THis middle of the road girl might need to train herself to not only run while balancing two different sides of an issue, but also to effectively run towards an end.

friendships

I don't care what anyone else says, I am blessed with the best friends in the world. Sometimes I lay in bed at night and just let each one of them scroll across my brain. I stop with each new face and rejoice in the connections, moments, laughters and sorrows that have made them a part of my life. Sometimes its so overpowering I want to cry.
I talk on the phone now with most of my friends or through a facebook chat (ridiculous, right?) and yet I'm amazed how connected I still feel to them, how much my thoughts reach out for them.
Today I worked at the Aowns. I really hate calling it work even though I'm paid and it can be exhausting because I feel like I'm at my other home. I had so much fun today because of such little things that make up life but are so much better with friends. I watched the apple cup with Isaac. I taught Tamala how to sew christmas pillow cases. I made sure itunes played only christmas music, and had plenty of encouragment for the tree decorators and I helped Mari with long divison ( how many times does three go into nine? apparently 27) :). oh, and i rubbed the kitty's tummy and scratched behind the dog's ears.
What a wonderful life! What wonderful friends(yes,you)! I have been blessed beyond measure and I am so thankful, though not nearly thankful enough, for the "ties that bind our hearts in Christian love".

things to look forward to:

Thanksgiving with the arkins
my 22nd birthday
my adult driver license :)
Christmas break
singing christmas songs at church
getting the christmas tree
baking christmas cut out cookies and eating them
curling up to read some good books
snow?
finally getting to go to a group service in Jan.

Life is good. God is good. I am content.

- - - - - - - - -

Silence swallows, engulfs, devours,
It speaks its ponderous syllables.
Somehow I’m not devastated
For you and I are words.

Isaiah 8:12-13

"Do not call conspiracy all
That this people calls conspiracy,
And do not fear what it fears,
Or be in dread.
But the Lord of Hosts,
Him you shall shall regard as holy,
Let him be your fear and let him be your dread.
He will become a sanctuary..."

Freddy Francis

Today I found out that one of my campers, Fred Francis, passed away. He was in his eighties and had been coming to camp for longer than I've been alive. I don't think I've ever met a more adorable, funny, and all around wonderful old man. The stories are endless, and like all camp counselors I store up little treasures of memories I've had with each of my counselors because I never know when I won't see one of them again.
When you work with people with disabilities, you get to see some of the fragility of life, and yet, in that fragility are some of the most beautiful moments you may ever have the chance to experience. Moments that simply slide by because you can't really grasp the importance of them while you're living them. Its these moments that I've come to treasure in my heart as the times when I really lived. I can't explain it, except to say if you've ever had an experience like it, you'll know what I mean. I can't help but be touched by the people who have so shaped who I am today. Fred Francis was one of those people, though he may never have known what an impact he had on me. His life is one of many that has given me hope and joy (italian accent, glasses, singing opera, what more do you want?) and a dream that maybe some day I can give back what I have been so graciously given. So he sits now in my heart pocket, as Ellen Pew would say, to remind me of the reasons why I want to be a social worker.

greyishness that maybe isn't even grey

Have you ever wished that everything was black and white? Or wondered if maybe everything really is black and white and we just can't see it? Are ethical dilemas really there or do we just not have eyes to see things the way they really are? Or maybe we do, and thats why we have the dilemas in the first place? If everything really is black and white is that a good thing or a bad thing? And if its not then is that ok too? I'm no good at understanding most of these thought processes because I've been raised to see things as black and white, yet understand the world so much better in terms of perspectives, but want to somehow combine these two concepts to a way of black-grey-white. Not sure though...
I seem to be caught in this what I like to call "dance around in the middle of every issue" stage, which bothers me because I've also been raised to take a firm stance on something. Know something and defend it. Instead I feel as I wallow around in wishy-washy not-sureness. But at the same time, if I understand where another side is coming from, its really hard to say they're wrong. And yet, I have to think that some things in this world are just plain wrong. Like murder (not that I know many people who defend this). uh...I guess this is where discernment comes in...

needing theology?

I have a lot of thoughts recently about hell/ God's goodness/ how maybe the reason we have theology and so many different sections of the church is that we need these different interpretations of our faith, not the other way around. I don't really like saying that because it seems really liberal to me, but the more I examine my own life, the more it seems to be true. Except for I started out thinking I would find predestination to be objectively true or not, and wound up six years later realizing that maybe the reasons I believe in predestination run a little deeper than whether or not it is objectively true. I can honestly say that I hated the idea when I first heard it, and I searched and searched and searched for over a year to make some sense of something I found to be so horrible. And then once I did decide it to be true, I spent the rest of the time begging God that I be one of the elect. I know firsthand how destructive believing in predestination can be. But then when I actually experienced the concept of predestination on a practical level, I realized how beautiful it was. Maybe it was selfish of me to believe in a doctrine that says some human beings are ordained to hell because it brought comfort to me, but I think I can safely say that without believing in predestination, I might not have made it through the past two years. There were moments in which the only reason I somehow didn't cut myself were because I believed that God had control of my future, and that he would use these hard, difficult times to shape me for the better. I had to cling to this concept that God refines us by fire, that he doesn't just watch what happens and can't offer any immediate aid or help. My God had to be one that could heal me through this, bring me through and transform me into a beautiful child when all around me I saw only despair. And so, I see evidence of God working in my life through predestination, I see him entering into my suffering, and bringing me through it by allowing me to cling to a belief no matter how "right" or "wrong" it is.

So now it gets down to the tricky part. I guess I would have to say if this rings true in my own life, then the doctrines that everyone else around me believes are somehow the way in which God works in their lives. That even if they prove to be unfounded, these doctrines are a means of God's grace in the world to us. But is there a line then? Is there a point in which you cross from God's grace into a false understanding of God that negatively affects your faith? This is my point of struggle this year. If this line exists, where is it? And how do I love individuals who have crossed that line in my mind, but yet so evidently love and worship the God of the Bible? How can I reconcile all these things?

At some point I believe we reach a place where questions and doubts and an inability to grasp these concepts can't help us anymore. At some point we have to simply believe. For me, it’s nice to know that I don't have the ultimate authority in the universe, that I am subject to a God, who however you choose to define it, is good. It is this good God that we will stand before, and it is he who will finally decide how all these things work out. It doesn't make it any easier for me. Sometimes its harder, but I have also found that in surrender and obedience there is great joy. But that's a story for another day.

I feel like I'm being pulled in a million directions right now, but none of those directions are where I'm supposed to be. As the days grow closer to when I will begin a new school, a new year, a new major, new friends, new life, I can't help but desire the old, the comfortable, the mundane of the past three years again. I want that connectedness, the feeling that I was part of something bigger and greater than myself. Maybe thats my problem. I don't know. All I do know is that I feel for the first time since realizing that Im not going to be at SPU and on group, a deep sense of loss, of wondering how I will grow and change on my own, without those familiar experiences shaping me. A new world of possibilities has opened up and I suppose I should be excited for the endlessness of them, but right now I just want that comfortable familiarity of the Teacup on a rainy afternoon in October. I want to set up light trees and eat subway three times a week with beautiful people that I love dearly.

I know we don't always get to see the full picture and so I'm trying to embrace the little piece I have now or maybe cling to it is a better word. I'm trying to be patient until the day I get to see clearly what has been so muddled now, but its hard. And so I have days like today where it takes all of my willpower just to be content...

Just a little glimpse of how much plaid love there is at camp and how much love there is in general at good old Camp Harkness!

bite-sized pieces

I just got home from camp this morning after waking up at 3:30am eastern time to catch my 6am flight. I'm pretty wiped out and haven't had much energy for anything other than sleeping and picture organzing, which is quite a task since I have over 2000 pictures.
Even though I go to camp year after year capturing it in images and video clips is nearly impossible to do. I try to bring as much of it back with me so that in those long winter months when the sun feels like its never out and the chaos of camp feels far away, I can still relive the moments I've experienced with dear friends.

But no matter how hard I try, those videos don't capture the soul of camp; its like C.S. Lewis wrote about his experiences of joy: whenever you search for it, its always a step ahead, eluding you with hopes of it being just around the next bend. Camp is like that. If you try to conjure up emotions that you once had because you're afraid of loosing them, you end up missing out on the actual moments and experiences in front of you.

Because thats what camp is: a series of profound life-altering moments. Its also why camp is so exhausting because no matter what is going on around you, there's bound to be something profound happening in the most mundane of tasks. But if you actually try to discover it directly, you end up missing out on both the moment and the discovery. You have to allow each experience to seep into your heart and mind and soul and let it stew there for a few days to years before you begin to understand the significance of brushing someone's teeth, pouring them a glass of juice, cutting up pancakes into bite-sized pieces, tucking the blankets in around them at night. Even then I still find myself wondering at the privilege of being able to experience so much in such short bursts of time. How can I ever fully utilize the tremendous gift I've been given in working at Camp Harkness, how can I ever fully explain the lessons I've learned? Are there any other people who understand, and can I ever help anyone to understand who doesn't?
I want so badly to live with camp in my heart: its images and moments and memories a place where God has spoken so clearly and yet so indirectly that I spend the rest of my life discovering how each of these gifts has shaped me into who I am and who I become.

perseverance

I’m clinging to the promise, the reward of my last day, the sure foundation of my hope and the source of life within me. I am drawing closer each day to that great day when I will at last stand face to face with Jesus. May I live each moment in light of the glory of your face, each grace-filled hour as a fraction of the beauty I will see there, and each difficult, lonely day as the closest to hell I will ever be. Praise be to you Lord Jesus Christ for keeping me in your hand, for showing me more grace and mercy and justice and love than I could ever have imagined. May my life this week and always be a testament to your righteousness and your overwhelming compassion.

what does it really mean to see someone as an image-bearer of God? How can I fully comprehend the imago dei when understanding the Creator of that image is beyond words?

What does it mean to see myself as an image-bearer of God? How do I see myself for who I really am? The good and the bad?

Camp has made me ask this question even more. I wrote a reflection for group about the image of God, but what words and experiences have I had that really capture this idea? Working with people with disabilities has definitely changed how I think about imago dei, but I still feel so uneducated, unable to express or comprehend the beauty and majesty of God found in each human being.

What does this even mean? What does it mean that we each bear a unique aspect of God's image?

The end of an era

I've reached the end of my time at SPU and I think this picture sums it up. Family. Of all my experiences here, group staff has had the most lasting impression on my life and I hope that I will have the privilege of seeing these individuals continue to impact me throughout my life. Here's to the end of a wonderful story and the start of another!

I'm sitting here like I usually do at the close of another school year, trying to figure out what exactly each moment in this place has added up to. A good experience, a bad one, neither? What have I really learned? Who have I become? Where am I going? All these questions and more are flooding my brain, and yet I don't have the answers to most of them. I'm too close to this place to really understand what it all means, and honestly, some things will always be a mystery no matter how hard I try to peel back the layers.
Its hard to try and figure out how these three years at SPU have changed me, and yet in one sense I see so many lessons learned, friendships built, dreams realized and others taken away. I've had moments of extreme sorrow and moments when JOY filled my heart against all odds. And in the background beauty has always been there. The beauty of people, hurts, deaths, peace, patience, and hope. The beauty of Christ healing my heart of so much pain, and seeing him dwell richly in others.
Honestly, I have a lot of friends who don't understand why I love spu when I was rejected twice from their nursing program, but each of those rejections was a needed circumstance, a good I didn't want, but wouldn't trade for the world. I have been shaped and fashioned by two things at SPU: relationships and rejections. I wouldn't give any of those experiences away, no matter how painful they were. I would not be who I am today or going where I am now if not for those people who have come alongside me, and for the circumstances that were beyond my control.
So as I sit here reflecting on the past three years, I feel more than prepared to go, to find a new place of growth and to live in the grace, peace, and joy that Christ so graciously provides.

metaphors

I see the world through lyrics and metaphors,
Similes and analogies swirling
Like so many dust motes
In the sunlight of my mind.
Some- like rare gems
I collect in a secret corner
Counting my treasures like
A miser pores over his gold.
Others I see in vivid pictures
Wishing to rip them from
The screen of my mind.
Somehow this aspect of being
Is worth more to me
Than the things themselves,
This means that has become
My end,
In a twisting of the natural order.
A blessing
That I see the world
Through this lens,
This vision of a million
Different eyes upon a single scene.

each second

Somehow the oxygen still seep
Its way into your shriveled cells,
Each haggard breath a year of your life
In seconds.
Your eyes are glassy, unknowning pupils
Tossed amidst the blue of your irises.
Each heart beat pounds like a race horse
Down its final lap,
Erratic, frantic pulsing, one hundred and eighty beats
In each second.
And my hands shake as they brush
Ones, paper-thin and immobile at your side.
And each second
Is like a decade as Time and Death
Fight their age-old struggle
In you.
Why must civilians feel the heat of bombs,
The bone –crushing force of victory
That in seconds
Changes the landscape of your body,
Conforms it to the shape of the earth
Beneath you?
But the warriors have no answers and
My brain skips wildly,
Each neuron-message an overwhelming effort
And in each second
A century roles by and
The drips of the IVs and the blinking lights
Attempt their own conclusions.

Blockout #3 ...Genes

The era of the genome,
powerful
for healthy people.
Skeptics attempt debate
despite studies, dollars-
The unexpected
affects
a few.

blockout #2

I think I might be obsessed with this new way of creating poetry. I did another one after my first and I really like this one too!

The first homily was everything
From politics to prayer,
A church focused on
Contemporary experience.
Parishoners light up-
A disarming relationship-
A weekly television program-
Maybe jokes, a bit of catechism-
But smiles,
Expressive and enthusiatic,
Demonstrate a list of ills,
"Treasure" in accessible and friendly terms-
Faith escaping fact.

blockout poem

I made my first block out poem with group staff and I liked my results. The original article was about the fear of a swine flu pandemic. Here it is:

Predicting is a dicey endeavor-
A threat,
A side effect-
The unexpected development
Of books, articles, and
Discussions.
Panic- that virus-
Emerged,
And on the side of caution,
Experts retired,
Circumspect in their answers.
But medications
Can infect,
Standard sanitizers
In the outbreak of
Reassurances.

communion

Taste my richness,
Let me satiate your soul.
Take my blood for your thirst
And my flesh for your food.
Consume my brokenness-
My perfect weakness-
And never want again.
For I am Sustenance
That does not flag,
I am Life that cannot die,
And I am Rest.

Night

Night unfolds her velvet gown
And reaches out to touch the hem
Of Day’s retreating form.
Softly, Softly,
She steals away the light,
And folds up Morning’s gown
In chests of deepest blue,
To wait until Darkness,
Has carried out her silent parade-
Then Light once more her golden skirts will shake,
And dance her way across an azure sky.

Envelopes continued...

I didn't get into SPU's program. Well, I was waitlisted, so my odds of getting in are pretty small. But it doesn't really matter, because when I saw that tiny little envelope, I realized I didn't lose anything that couldn't be found elsewhere. I don't know what I was so scared about. I'm a different person today than I was last year, not because I am better, but because Jesus Christ has met me where I am time and again. From these experiences I have been blessed with faith and hope and peace. Besides, now I'm so used to waiting that realizing I have another couple months of uncertaintity doesn't feel that bad. In fact, it feels kind of good to know that nothing has really changed. Does it hurt at all? The answer is an emphatic YES, but I know now that despite the hurt, God is working something good in my life, and he will see it to perfection. So as I sit here trying to process everything through, I am more than convinced that this tiny envelope was a very good gift from above.

An Envelope

Its time for me to finally know something about my future. I'm thrilled and terrified and so glad that I can live in blissful ignorance for another three days. I know I am different person than I was last year at this time, but I'm still afraid that everything I've learned, that who I've become will somehow change when I see whether or not I have a large envelope or a small one. I don't even have to open it if its small...I'll just know.
There's another part of me that doesn't care whether or not I stay at SPU next year;in some ways I feel ready to move on. THis year has been so good for me in so many ways, that to move on now would feel right, but to stay? What will happen if I stay?
So in three days I'll open up my envelope and a little bit of my future will unfold itself from the pages, and I'll finally know something. But what will it be? Whatever it is, it will be good.

drowning

Drowning

A rock is bound to my heart,
And a million tiny drops
Crush me with the gravity of grief.
Memories rush into the cavities
Designed for breath,
And with a gurgling surge
Choke out every last
Molecule of life.
My writhing body
Claws feebly,
In vain attempts to reach
Above the surging waves,
And at last goes still-
At rest in an ocean of pain.

The Gift

I'm not sure if I'm satisfied with this draft yet. I think its lacking something, but I need to let it soak into me for a while before I'm sure what exactly is bothering me. Anyway, here it is:

I met Sorrow
As She came along the narrow, twisted path,
Arms wide, waiting to receive me.
Her hands gripped me,
Forced me headlong
Down the path I didn’t want to go.
I closed my eyes
And ran, ran from the horror
Of cold reality.
From the misery of facing
The long, hard road
With Sorrow alone my guide.

I met Joy when she fell in step beside me
And grasped my bruised and gritty hand.
She too gripped me,
Led me down the path
I could not bear to see.
In vain I struggled to be free
Of this strange twin
To my own grief,
This apparition whose,
Raw strength was forever coupled
With my breaking.

Gifted as I was with Sorrow and with Joy,
A bitter blessing
To have been bequeathed,
A double vision I beheld-
I saw such Glory -new to me,
And Beauty -to my soul revealed.
And last, I came upon a Friend-
Pierced with both my blessings-
Whose face was Gift enough for me
And his Peace, beyond all telling.

planted

I hear the gulls crying anxiously.
Hurry, hurry,
Join the rush of wind and sky and sea.
The waves beckon
And I yearn to be free,
Free of the cage
Binding me to sand,
The gravity flowing in my veins,
Pulsing in my tissues.
But I alone
Am planted in the earth;
I alone am formed of dust.
I alone have sought what I could not have.
And so the horizon grows ever fainter,
As the one who was made for sky and sea
Is folded deeper in the earth

One Joy

Here's a poem by Emily that I really, really connect with. In many ways i feel that it is an expression of my journey through last year.

"One Joy of so much anguish
Sweet nature has for me
I shun it as I do Despair
Or dear iniquity —
Why Birds, a Summer morning
Before the Quick of Day
Should stab my ravished spirit
With Dirks of Melody
Is part of an inquiry
That will receive reply
When Flesh and Spirit sunder
In Death's Immediately —"