Wide Open Spaces

I took a drive. There was an hour to kill between classes and I took a drive. Sometimes there is a craving deep within me for wide open spaces.

The view outside my windshield was mostly brown, but there was the glint of sunshine off in the distance as it teased the turning hands of the windmills. Leaning forward in my seat, as if the action would suddenly tele-port me to be with the waving hands of the windmills on those blue-brown hills, I let my thoughts travel the wide-open spaces.

Driving the hilly passage of Frog Hollow Road, I looked out of the corner of my eye and watched as fields and hills rolled passed my window frame like the waves of the sea. Brown fields transformed into the wide open spaces of waves and wind-swept fields of winter. Beautiful.

If I think about it, I am living the dream: I attend a private university, have a car, two jobs, and am part of a religion that strives to know what 'Present Truth' is. The 'dream' can sometimes turn into a bubble of sorts; a lot of time spent honing your mind and writing skills to achieve a personal goal of graduating with a degree. And, is that degree enough? Will my life breech this bubble eventually and flourish; reaching towards what is good and what is good for others as well?

Lately, as winter quarter has been drawing to a close and the sunshine has shown its glorious face giving those of us who live in the upper left U.S.A. that there is hope for summer, conversations with friends have turned towards graduation, but more importantly life after graduation. Let's be honest, the world is shifting. For those studying the sciences and aiming for jobs in healthcare: healthcare is changing its focus and those unknowns make a future ambiguous. For those of us graduating with B.A. degrees of some sort, we often wonder if we'll ever find a job that aligns with our degree without having to go to graduate school and then start wondering if we should have gone to nursing school afterall.

This is why I go to the wide-open spaces. Not only does it give me time to be and to breathe, but it gives me space to wonder and ponder and actually look at the physical landscape of the earth and the way Eastern Washington is so wide-open, it reminds me that my life, goals, and future is WIDE-OPEN!

My degree does not define me. The unknowns don't define me, but the way I approach the wide-open present moment and future does, because how I react to this present moment does in fact define who I am and how my future is shaped. In Jesus I have my identity, but he created me to have a brain that holds perspective, the ability to see beyond myself, and a faith that gets out of the chair and walks into action-into the wide-open spaces.

What if the earth could console itself?

What if the earth could console itself?
Molding green, blue together.
Would it be fuller?

What if the world could console itself?
Rain and wind dancing together.
Would hands grasp another?

καλός μόνος

Smooth sidewalks spread all over like cracks in an iced-over pond. Trees older than the brick buildings next to them stand with arms held open-wide in praise. The grass below and beside hasn't yet decided if its going to wear its winter or spring color, but I know. My flannel shirt is the top layer of my two-shirt combination and my scarf hangs on the chair next to me. My brown leather boots laced and tied to the top. It's winter. The world has chosen its attitude with the season and I look out these huge framed windows over its scene and find that my soul is still along with the world outside. This is good.

In Greek, the word for "good" is καλός (kalos). This word also means beautiful. Stop and think or meditate for a moment on the word "good." What sort of connotations, pictures, or emotions do you associate with this word? 

Often when I think of the word "good" I see pictures of places, people, or times when I see people or myself smiling. And the occasions with smiles aren't just anytime, but when the smile was derived from something pure like watching a sunset with a friend, sitting in the pew at vespers and hearing the Gospel spoken with new words, seeing good friends after months, making rice and lentils in fellowship, or having a child fall asleep in your arms during church. 

It's an incredible paradox that there is even καλός in our world. Adam and Eve chose to know the distinction between what was good and what wasn't. Before The Choice that shaped what our world looks like today, they knew only καλός. Only good. Only good. Can you imagine? And so we live in a world of the knowledge between what is good and what isn't. We now have the opposite choice to make. We have the choice to see only good. Only good. 

Καλός μόνος.

May we reach towards Jesus with the goal of becoming more like our original created being. May we see the contrast in our day and may we seek to see the good and move towards the wholeness of our creation.

The Door

The door.
It has a way through and a way out.
I consider it as I stand about.
The way it is built strong,
I cannot relate with its structural stays
knowing within this door a body lays
on a bed of white sheets.
White, a reflection of my hands as I hold them tight
in anticipation of a long-suffering night.
For this body is hooked up to machines
and I often do not know if this body will sleep in peace.
The door.
It has a way through and a way out.
A frame of passageway I wonder about.
Knowing within this door a body lays
with a head and a heart and blood running through those veins.
Again I look down and see a tag
with the words "CHAPLAIN" written in black.
I've been named with so much to give
and what if my words are not what they need to live?
Oh, but I am reminded:
Words are not needed.
Only a hand to hold and a heart wide-open.
These are the gifts we are given.
So, I told those hands to open and my feet to move
and I knew I had nothing to loose
because we are given a great gift of connection!
One where we find love and affection.
Moving towards the door,
I looked harder than before
and found as I walked through
a face much like my own.
And this is where the healing takes place
when we look at each other and can see a face
and not just some colored space where
there might be an eye and a nose,
but a face in which communion in brokenness knows
there is the gift of
the door.

In my work as an intern chaplain at the hospital, I find myself standing before many doors every day. Each door is a physical and metaphorical passageway into someone else's life. I am reminded often as I walk through these doorways what a gift I have been given as a broken human being to have the opportunity to connect with another's heart in a matter of moments. It's an extremely humbling experience. Now, full and deep connection doesn't always take place and I respect and can often relate to the patient's boundaries for when they do not feel comfortable sharing, but when connection does happen it is a beautiful awakening in which I realize the patient and I are not much different from one another. We are broken human beings in need of a Savior who will restore us. May we become aware of the great gift we are given in each other and feel the full weight of the importance of being with someone, valuing them. 

To Wrestle is a Good Thing

I need it. You need it. The person you work with needs it. The rambunctious kids in Bangladesh need it. Even the people who have the beauty of softness and peace in their eyes need it. We all just need time to wrestle.

A woven grass mat lay beneath my cris-crossed legs as the long-awaited sunlight lit the courtyard in the middle of the receiving center at Bangla Hope. It was late December and the fog had fallen upon this little country like a damp blanket, shielding us from the sun for almost two weeks. But as Friday afternoon came like a gift, so did the sun, and we sat in the courtyard on a woven mat just after nap-time.

Lisa and Kelsey had been visiting for Christmas and it was hard to tell who was more excited about their visit, the kids or me! The last full-day of their visit arrived and so here we sat on the woven mat in the grass.

I remember sitting down first and seeing the little boys come running towards me. All of sudden, I was on the ground as little bodies pushed the full force of their body weight right into my shoulders and stomach! At this point I was on the ground with three boys on top of me and two more on their way, giggling and making play growling sounds all the way. Alright, you want to wrestle?, I thought,  you asked for it!

We wrestled for a few more minutes till we were all out of breath. Then one of the cooks brought out a huge bag of rice balls for everyone to snack on and we feasted calmly on the mat in the grass enjoying the sweet treat.

It's been eight months since I landed in San Francisco in utter awe of the clear blue skies and clean carpet of the airport wearing a bandana and my shalwar kamis. Eight months of taking in America with new eyes and discovering the amount of internal struggle around me. The word "struggle" usually comes with a negative connotation, but I believe it doesn't have to. A struggle is a process, an action of wrestling to overcome. And may I even go as far to say that this is a good thing to do? To struggle? Am I crazy?

Hear me out, complacency is not a place we want to find ourselves too often. If we are just "okay" with how life is and happens around us then something is missing. When we find something that makes us excited or gets our stomachs churning then we know we are alive! This is where the wrestling comes in.

We have to have time to wrestle! With the good and the bad, because that's how you find out if it is a good or bad thing by wrestling, pushing it around in our minds, pinning it down and staring it straight in the face, and perhaps ending up on our backs, laughing our heart out at the joy we find.

So, this is what I have been doing a lot of lately. Wrestling with all the knowns and unknowns in my life until I come to a place of discovery, make a conscious choice to distance myself from the bad and moving forward to grasp the good with all I have and be thankful.

My Thankful list today:

The tree that is on fire with color in front of Chan Shun!
My little red road bike "Penny"
Random dinners with friends throughout the week
Long walks in the glowing light of Fall at dusk
Wise old ladies in the hospital who are still smiling

Dark Brown On White

A pillar of fog, steam climbs towards the ceiling. The new Gungor album plays to the beat of my wondering as it travels a road of mountains and grassy fields. The windows are both open and through them the outside comes in; a brisk, brilliant Fall day. Two sweaters wrap me up tight and this moment is beautiful as rice cooks in the corner and the music wanders on with my soul in tow. And for the first time in a long time I feel present in the moment, paying attention to what life consists of in the here and now. Warmth, rice, and melodies mixing and rising.

I look up to the brick wall and find deep brown eyes and lips smiling back at me. Pictures from another place. And it reminds me of the ever-present question that is asked of my today, "How was your experience?"

What a question! Does the "asker" even know what they have asked, I often wonder. Their care is apparent and is valued. But, how do I take the smile of a child and have words flow and form into the same picture?

For you hold the depth of an ocean in your eyes,
little one. The deep brown of wonder,
of love, of loss, of the growing your body still has to take.
Little one, your eyes are a pool of gentleness,
of grace that holds you together,
a grace foreign to your race.
Show them, little one, through eyes of light,
that loss and abandonment will not be the deciding factor tonight.
But, instead, show them your eyes,
the contrast of color: dark brown on white,
that constants aren't of this green and blue orb,
but of the light that pricks through the darkness;
stars on a canvas, black.
Look up, little one, and your eyes will reflect,
the beauty of the broken and a love that does not forget.

So, "How was your experience?" is a question we use as a definition, a point of quick collection, of summary. And I choose to respond with "life." Life happened and with it came immense joy, suffering, and a ton of learning!

May I, as a returned student missionary, continue to choose life and live out the lessons I have learned and let the joy I experienced seap through to my today where my experience becomes my reality which will continue to impact who I am and those around me. This is my prayer. May it be so.


*This is written in honor of those precious children who have stolen my heart and for my fellow returning Student Missionaries who answer this question daily.

Word Drinking

Word drinking. It's a lifestyle. When you soak in words far past the obvious and dig straight to the simple depth of a phrase. Then you let it sit there and mix with your soul. You can find truth, beauty, and a pathway.  And when you take the time to walk down that path you will find yourself face to face with another whose heart is searching and with whom you find much in common. If you walk a little farther and around a bend, you too will find pathways of your own where words and ideologies grow and bloom along the way. Humanity. Expression. Longing. This is the journey of self-actualization.

My fingers leaf through the see-through pages of my pocket-sized, stitches coming loose, brown leather version of the Good Book and I know what I'm looking for. My page-thumbing is intentional. I'm looking for those soul-open words of the Psalmist. And the moment I mention the poet, your mind leaps to the image of an emotional wreck of a writer. That's true. David was searching and walking down his own pathways and watching the seeds of his thoughts sprout, grow, and burst with color all around him. He let it out! This guy was going somewhere, he was on a journey.

"The Lord is my light and my salvation - so why should I be afraid? The Lord protects me from danger - so why should I tremble? When evil people come to destroy me, when my enemies and foes attack me, they will stumble and fall. Though a mighty army surrounds me, my heart will know no fear. Even if they attack me, I remain confident. The one thing I ask of the Lord - the thing I seek most - is to live in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, delighting in the Lord's perfections and meditating in his Temple. For he will conceal me there when troubles come; he will hide me in his sanctuary. He will place me out of reach on a high rock. Then I will hold my head high, above my enemies who surround me. At his Tabernacle I will offer sacrifices with shouts of joy, singing and praising the Lord with music. 

Listen to my pleading, O Lord. Be merciful and answer me! My heart has heard you say, "Come and walk with me." And my heart responds, "Lord, I am coming." Do not hide yourself form me. Do not reject your servant in anger. You have always been my helper. Don't leave me now; don't abandon me, O God of my salvation! Even if my father and mother abandon me, the Lord will hold me close. Teach me how to live, O Lord. Lead me along the path of honesty, for my enemies are waiting for me to fall. Do not let me fall into their hands. For they accuse me of things I've never done and breathe out violence against me. Yet I am confident that I will see the Lord's goodness while I am here in the land of the living. Wait patiently for the Lord. Be brave and courageous. Yes, wait patiently for the Lord." (Psalm 27 NLT)

David is walking his own pathway here. He's already drank the words of promise in (Psalm 23) and now he's claiming them and working out what those mean in his own life. He's coming to a place of conviction! Self-actualization, or maybe more accurately, a Theistic view of self-actualization: his existence defined by the Father.

Conviction is essential to survival and ultimately to thrive. It's a journey. It involves vulnerability, connection, and deep word drinking. Searching out and holding onto our beliefs is a beautiful pathway of learning more about others who have walked the path and coming to a place where you define what makes life worth living and who we are at our core and how this will seep into the lives around us.