{25/365} the river.
2nd September 2012 | 365, faith. | 0 comments
Whenever I read Madeleine L’Engle {usually I pick one to read during the summer.. I’m on my THIRD already!} I get this overwhelming desire to go off alone for BE-ing time. From the deepest parts of my soul, I feel restless and tense with the thought of sitting inside and being distracted by the internet or my phone or distractions.
Friday was starting to look like this. My favorite TV show, my favorite snacks, and a puzzle of kittens.
and then I looked outside and wondered how many more beautiful days we have before the air turns cold and my face starts getting itchy {cold weather makes my face hurt}.
If I ever complain about where I live, hit me. You have my full permission to full on punch me if I ever complain about living here. I don’t think it’s going to happen, but just in case. The northwest is beautiful. I live close to the Columbia River, and though I walk on the path near the river, I wanted to touch it and to be surrounded by the sound of the waves coming in and out of the shore.
Not to be all Pocahontas-Colors-of-the-Wind, but a great sense of my smallness comes when I am close to creation that I normally think of as life-less. But the water has life, it is moving and creating change and being changed. Water knows the Lord. Jesus proved that when he told it to calm itself. All of creation – not just mankind – responds to its Creator. Sitting by the water reminds me of that. I am more important than the water, surely, but we are both the product of the same Love.
{020/365} cuz yolo.2
27th August 2012 | 365 | 2 comments
Yesterday we went to visit my grandmother in the hospital. When we got there, my aunt was upset and said she was on her way out. In the room, we saw my grandma sitting in a trance, not saying anything. She snapped out if it and got back to talking. She told me I look beautiful in orange and told me to consider being an LPN. But something she told me reminded me of something I’d already decided a few years ago.
She told me to make sure I had stories.
Last night I walked around downtown Vancouver, listening to music from the Wine & Jazz Fest and then listening to John Mayer while I sat in the dark, listening to the wind and the water of the Columbia River. I tried to write things down, but couldn’t find the energy to. So I sat and I exchanged text messages with Bee and enjoyed a soy caramel latte.
I couldn’t sleep. At 11, 11:30, 12:45, 1:20 or 2:55. I finally made it to bed at 4:05 am. My brain just wouldn’t stop. Though I hadn’t actually listened to it all day, I found myself humming a line from a John Mayer song while I was driving home.
Am I living it right?
and well?
and intentionally?
and with the realization that I am the only me there is, and with that comes a huge responsibility to live life intentionally.
Whenever I get to deliver the wakeup call at camp, I say it like this:
Today is Monday, August 27th, 2012. It is the only Monday, August 27th, 2012 you will ever experience. So get out of bed and get living Monday, August 27th, 2012.
And sometimes I am like that. Sometimes I wake up and I YOLO all day long. Last night I felt like that, shivering in the cold breeze of the River. It just comes naturally sometimes. Intentional living doesn’t just happen, though. If you want to make sure you have stories, you can’t stroll through life oblivious of the people and situations around you. Opportunity doesn’t always come up and present itself with a big punch in the face. Often it sits under rocks and high in trees and in caves and you’ve gotta explore. The deeper you explore, the fuller your stories.
For the past few weeks I’ve been watching a scar develop on my leg. From the moment it happened, I said “I hope this scars. Because I want for someone to ask me how it happened, and I’d say ‘well first I need to tell you why I was drinking coffee from Jack in the Box in Braden’s car at 6 am.’” Stories grow out of other stories which have come from other stories. It’s like inception, maybe. I don’t really know because I never fully understood that movie.
So I dare you to say yes to something new, to listen more carefully, to laugh louder, to take a risk and to really fully grasp that your time on earth will expire. Hopefully we’ll all have many more days, but since you never know it’s not a bad idea to start right now.
