braveheart

My mother and I are on the trip of a lifetime and I am doing a terrible job documenting it in writing. I am doing a better job documenting it in photographs, so I will not worry so much that I am failing at one thing.

So far we have experienced all we could of Prague, and continue on the adventure with a comprehensive tour of the UK. All I ask for is to hear the music of bagpipes on the hills of Scotland. I fear I will hear much more unpleasant things before I have such joy. Yet the sounds of trains and of airplanes and of noise in city streets and of Irish accents and of crowds in London should be enough to tide me over until then.

This travel has been wonderful and I do already miss home. Missing home after being gone so short a time is a strange feeling for me. I am not so sure what to do with the feeling but to be glad that I am growing right where I am on Michigan soil. I am so glad to see more of the world and so glad to have some place to go home to.

running

I have always hated to run. In high school, the worst days of my life were the ones in which we had to run the mile. I was a terrible runner. I was always last. The fat kids were faster than me. When I took a PE class in college, I was horrified to learn that I had to run a mile and a half three times throughout that semester. Running, in a weight training class! It was awful.
I know people now who love to run. These people have always told me that they used to hate running too. They tell me that when they started out it was terrible, but that once they got past the terribleness, they just loved it. I have always thought they were lying.
Well a couple weeks ago I was in Montana and feeling pretty good about things, like about climbing mountains and crossing rivers and just being pretty hard core extreme. I thought, when it came up in conversation, that a triathlon was a sweet idea and that with some training, I could totally do it. So the idea was born and we are really going to do a triathlon (a mini one) in just under two weeks.
Needless to say, I have started to run. The first time, I went with my friend Sarah and I made it further than I thought I would, but I was wishing the whole time that I would twist my ankle so I could stop running and, even better, have a great excuse to back out of the triathlon. The second time we ran I did not have to stop and walk and was feeling pretty proud of myself. The subsequent times just kept getting better and better and tonite, I went on a late nite bridge run with three of my friends. We crossed five different bridges. I did not stop and I did not die. I actually enjoyed myself. We just calculated that we ran 2.66 miles. And for the girl who used to walk behind the running fat kid during the high school PE class mile, I am pretty dang impressed.

writing

Small parts of me fade away sometimes and in those times I am less likely to write. Perhaps lately has been those times. I have had no motivation to place my most inner thoughts on display for anyone else to see.

I have heard it said that writing is hard and that it is painful because when we do it, whether we think we have something to say or have no idea what words will find themselves to a page, the things that come out are often a surprise; words can come from places we did not know were there.

Sometimes I sit down and think I am well and I write and my fears and failures spill out like the glass of water my friend’s child just spilled when she tried to pour from a large pitcher herself. Sometimes I am quite sure that I am falling apart and I find myself writing of hope and promise with a conviction I thought I had lost.

So writing is scary because it requires we let go control. We face blinding white space and we allow the inky mess of ourselves spill all over the page in whatever manner it pleases. We write when we do not know if we have anything to say and when we think we do, we do our best to get out of the way while the words surface on paper.

july

July is running away as fast as it can.

i have been reconciling and asking questions and making meals for friends.

There have been days where it has felt right that they should begin with rain, like the day that i watched friends place a child in the ground and the day that i cried because i do not know what to do.

And there have been days where it has felt right that they should be full of sunshine and new beginnings and should end with meals in the park and with people that i love and with the stories of how God is so very good.

cornerstone, again.

I am taking the last bit of time that I have to myself before leaving for Cornerstone Fest in the morning. I am looking forward to the trip. Although I will admit that I have had moments of wondering why I ever brought this upon myself one more time. I guess that getting over Cornerstone is one of those things I will just never learn. Cornerstone always brings up a lot of memories; I’ve done a whole lot of growing up there. This will be my eighth Cornerstone, I’ve made the trip all but one year since I was 15 years old. My inaugural year was certainly the most memorable. Shooting stars, Over the Rhine, chicken fighting in the lake, mud people, mosh pits, heartbreak. Most of the other years are a blur of dusty roads, sweat, sleeping out under stars, and of the reminder that sometimes people that love Jesus the most are the least likely to look like I would imagine them to.

And sometimes I realized that the ones I assumed did were only putting on a show.

This is the 25^th Cornerstone Festival and its funny that going there always feels a little bit like going home. I do not think it is the hardcore bands playing on generator stages or the porta-johns or even finding old and new friends in the merch tents. I think that it has much more to do with the sky I look up and see at nite, with the guarantee I will see stars flying from one end to the other. I think it has to do with going to see Over the Rhine play at midnite, falling asleep to the melodies and waking to the audience clapping, over and again. And smiling when Karen and Linford always come back and play even after saying goodnite. I feel at home with the familiar Cornerstone smells of straw and sweat and with the feeling that I am getting older and that some things stay the same.

This is the third year that I have taken high schoolers to Cornerstone. I smile because many of them are coming back after that first year, just like I had. I worry because some of the girls seem so young and then I realize they are older, and probably wiser, than I was that first year. I hope that these kids keep coming back, year after year, and find a home for this one week of the year and that they see God in the sky and in the people crowded onto that ground.

trees with roots

I planted a tree. I literally sunk some roots into the ground. I am planning on giving it a few years to grow and cannot wait for it to bear fruit. Cherries.

Had I not won this tree, I would not have planted it. My chances were slim and I won.

It felt good to plant a tree. A kid from the neighborhood was over and he helped me plant the tree. He took over digging the hole. I told him he was great at digging and he told me it was because he buries a lot of cats in his yard for his mom and his aunt.

This planting could be symbolic. These roots finding their home in West side soil.

I may have planted the tree a little too close to the house and to another tree in the yard but this was the best place I could put it for now. I may still need to transplant it someday. But for now this is a good place for it to grow.

sabbath and schedule

I had one of the best sabbath days of my life yesterday. it was actually on a Sunday and i actually did not do any work.
i went to church. after getting home from church, i had lunch. after lunch i hopped on my bike and found two of my dear friends sitting in the grass of rosa park's circle. i joined them. i scanned a newspaper. i read my book. i fell asleep. i conversed. i got an iced soy latte.
hours later dana and i left, me on my bike and her in her car. i told her it was a race back to her house. and i won. we walked to the store and got chips and salsa and fruit and olives and went to john ball park and sat by the pond and had a picnic.

i do not remember the last time i spent that many hours sitting in grass and i did all day and i loved it.

in conversation dana and i realized we were struggling with lots of the same questions about life and purpose and next steps. we decided to start the morning Bible study we have been saying we were going to do for a long time. this led us to my roof, to sit down and schedule.
730 am will see us either walking around the city or discussing Henri Nouwen's book, Spiritual Direction, over coffee. wednesday afternoons we will work on art projects. i am getting back in the habit of writing down a schedule for my often unstructured days.

we started today and i feel good. we had a long walk this morning and when i got home i knew exactly what to do because i had written it down the nite before. i do not feel like i have wasted my day. i do not feel the anxiety i was growing so accustomed to carrying around with me.

i hope that today is the first day of this pattern for my summer weeks. true rest one day. and schedules the rest.