The Good I've Got

Sunday night I set my alarm for 5:20. 5:20. Usually any alarm set before 6 means I get to do something exciting, such as going to the airport. But today it meant I was going to the gym. Black- deep, dark, thick- was the first thing I saw. The next thing was Malcolm’s face telling me he was going back to bed instead of suffering along with me at the gym. Just as a little background: I've never been to a gym before. Most the stuff in there looks pretty similar to what I imagine the Spanish Inquisition may have used- and all I’ve ever seen of treadmills are the YouTube videos of people falling off of them. At 5:30 in the morning, I was pretty sure that was destined to be me. I got through it without incident, however, and 2 hours later I was in the car arguing with Malcolm over whether or not it was a viable option to listen to Pink before 8 am. I (barely) made it through U.S. History, escaped to Sweetie Pies for café au lait, and made it back in time to find a spot in the madhouse known as the NVC parking lot before Theatre 100. Lunch break. Homework. Read. Email. Class. Home. Breathe.

Bright- not the soft buttery light bright, but a hot, white blaze- rivaled with my alarm this morning. Today I don’t have to go to class. Today is an everything day. Homework-clean-errands-read-write-everything day.

Wednesday: Monday’s twin.

Thursday: another Everything day.

Friday: Happy-Weekend(!) day.

In the great scheme of things, most of my time is filled with pretty normal stuff: classes, homework, essays, conversations, losing paperwork, driving, novels, writing. Mundane.

Is it really, though- mundane? I’m not so sure I want to confine life under the constrains of those powerful 7 letters. As soon as any day-in-day-out becomes labeled ‘mundane’ it tends to remain there. And before I know it, whole slices of time are lost in the whirlpool of ‘everyday life’ and forgotten. Gone, with only the thrilling left to occupy. And when the thrilling becomes dull? Time is rushed- rushed for the next big thing, rushed to finish what doesn’t seem to count anymore, rushed and gone. Never to be seen again.

I haven't decided if then I should seek the extraordinary in the ordinary, or merely take joy in the mundane things. Maybe both. Either way, I never want today- or any day for that matter- to remain just another day.

Mondays, then- instead of treadmills and driving to school and wasting away in History class- hold the beauty of a black sky and the stillness before the world wakes up; bring the laughter that comes when Malcolm gives me his logic for driving around with a dead black rose on our dash; inspire thankfulness for the means to go to school.

" 'You could send your soul after the good you had expected, instead of turning it to the good you had got. You could refuse the real good; you could make the real fruit taste insipid by thinking of the other' " (Perelandra)

* http://hannah-tomorrowisamondaymorning.blogspot.com/p/1000.html *

Life at the Moment

{2 of the crazy people living in my house right now}

I am thankful for cream + sugar+ egg yolks+ cornstarch because together they make custard.

And there's nothing more wonderful than watching melted chocolate ravenously engulf silky cream custard as they slowly become one rich and wonderful entity.

I am thankful for leftovers. For the 4 leftover shortbread pieces that give mom and me an excuse to brew tea and sit down and watch E.R. We haven't done that in awhile.

I am thankful for laundry. For a washer and dryer that function as they are supposed to. For the assurance my clothing will not be swimming in a soupy mess of un-drained water when I go to dry it.

On the other hand I am thankful for the washing machine that never drained. Because though it left me with soggy clothes and $1.50 less, it also left me with a happy memory of being doubled over with laughter- if it weren't for nebulous laundry rooms and equipment, laundry parties would be so much less fun.

I am thankful for having to figure out how to share a gas tank with my little brother. I'm glad I have a little brother to share it with.

I am thankful for gray mornings with pearly light.

I am thankful for the very last cup of black coffee. For every drop of bittersweet and warm. For the line of my favorite mugs on my windowsill that represent night hours spent writing and lazy mornings spent doing nothing much.

I am thankful for friends that live far away and for spontaneous Skypes.

I am thankful for friends that live 5 min. away who have a mutual love of strawberries and awkward symbols and who are not-so-great at Rock Band but rock "Walking on Sunshine" like we composed it.

I am thankful for the 5 crazy boys { My 2 little brothers and 3 who think they are }who have practically lived here the past 2 weeks, drinking all the coffee and taking up all the couch space and filling all the silence.

I am thankful to be rooted and grounded in the Solid Rock, and so to be able to offer thanks.

Tonight I thought a lot about tomatoes. Tomatoes.

I was making the salad tonight, pretty much like any other night. First of all, let me just make it clear how happy I am 'salad' no longer means iceberg lettuce,watery tomatoes and weird croutons drowning in honey mustard just to make it taste. Other than that, there's nothing much exciting about making salad. There I was, cutting up cherry tomatoes and musing over what generally disagreeable things they were. To start, the tomato plants harbor the mother of all Godzilla-like spiders. This alone is enough to persuade me to relinquish tomatoes. And then they taste weird. In spite of all these detractors, God could have made every single tomato the same shade of red.

Really.

If you stop to think about it, there's no reason for tomatoes to be anything other than red. There's no reason for them to have color at all. But as I cut them up and tossed them on the salad, I couldn't help but thank God for color. For the tiny jewels bleeding saffron and the ruby-red half moons cresting over the tops of the romaine leafs, for the sunset coloring that pervaded a dingy cutting board, making it beautiful.

I'm still wondering why I thought so much about a fruit I don't even like.

"Count your blessings" goes the old saying.

Some days blessings are brilliant neon signs in the middle of your life. Most days, though, they're brilliant and tiny tomatoes causing me to give thanks.

Coffee and Cinnamon Rolls

As much as I abhor airports, I've found some of my best memories are made in them. Saturday morning all of the staff packed up in the vans one last time to head off to Philadelphia International Airport and then home. For the most part I held up some sense of put-togetherness on the 45 min. trip there, and then promptly began to lose it as we pulled up to the terminals. 2 hours of sleep were a lovely thing to blame for the absolute puddle of tears I became, but in all truth I had just been hit with the realization of how much everyone I was saying goodbye to had become a part of my life. Goodbyes are messy and wet and mostly incoherent (at least on my part) when exchanged between dear friends. In the midst of all the hugging and sobbing, though, there was something beautiful. As cheesy as it may sound, our summer ending and all the heart-wrenching goodbyes it entailed was the result of a love that goes beyond understanding.

It would make sense that in over the course of 8 weeks, spending 24/7 with each other and sharing almost everything, people would come together. It just happens naturally. What made the difference, though, was that these people were "the excellent ones" (Ps. 16:3) who were made that way by Christ because it delighted Him to do so. Every Sunday night at t-time (a time where students are able to chill and consume copious amounts of Cheez-Its while debriefing the day), I told my girls that. I followed with the challenge to treat those around them as excellent and to delight in them as Christ did- because the knowledge of Christ choosing to make us excellent beings and to delight in us in order to please Himself should so thrill and draw our souls to loving Him that all our love spills over on to others. Here then, I find the love that passes understanding. Christ's love was filling each of us as staff, and so was poured out among our team. We loved each other with a love not our own as we saw Christ being manifested in each other.

I come back to goodbyes. Several hours after the team had divided among numerous airlines and had been separated by the 'wailing wall'( as Lydia aptly dubbed the obnoxious glass wall between us and security), Lydia and I sat in the Phoenix airport waiting for her flight. We had come off our first flight exhausted and eager for coffee. Cinnabon was the closest thing to her gate, so she came up to me as I stood with our bags and said "Let's have coffee and cinnamon rolls." Those 15 minutes in that dingy airport with mediocre coffee hold one of my favorite memories of the summer: to sit with one of my dearest friends and share the joy of completing a good summer- fully knowing its goodness and simultaneously its time to end- was total joy and satisfaction. Even in saying goodbye and joking about joining her in Idaho just so I wouldn't have to do that anymore, it was wonderful to know our relationship went beyond camp and summer and distance.

So here I sit in my bed with my cat, happy and content. Being home is good. Hopefully over the next couple weeks I'll be able to share some of my stories and thoughts from the summer, but for now- bed, because sleep is also good. Very good.

Staff Training: WVA 2011

I'm riding once again in a Worldview 15 passenger van, traveling through Kansas. I'm not sure what number state this is. :)

Staff training finished up not even an hour ago. I'm pretty sure we all just stepped off the plane into Tulsa and into so many loving arms. "Surreal" is how I would describe the week. Training was held on the Oklahoma Weslyan campus ,where my team had spent 2 weeks the previous year. I kept expecting to see their faces or hear their laughs as I passed certain spots, jerking quickly back to the present. I realized I was transferring the relationships from the end of last summer and expecting them to materialize among 18 strangers. A friend told me I couldn't re-create what I had never created in the first place. So over games resulting in multiple bruises, lots of cafeteria food (for me this was a steady diet of yogurt and granola, waffles, pb&j, soft serve ice cream and salad), and rolling numerous t-shirts, our team has started to come together. We also discovered a mutual love of good, strong, black coffee and are so equipped with 2 drip coffee filters and 1 french press.

A lot of logistics were discussed, from setting up banners and small groups to skits and opening day procedures. A morning Bible study held by one of the camp directors explored the theme of mercy throughout the Psalms. My mindset coming into training wasn't really one of dependence on God- I was so excited to be at camp and wrapped up in doing a 'good job' I lost some of my reasons for being there. I was hit soundly over the back of the head within these Psalms, facing God- whose power and might and justice should terrify us- and realizing my absolute helplessness before Him. But (and this is a wonderful thing) His steadfast love and faithfulness precede Him. And God keeps the promises He makes, not because any of our actions merit it, but because He is God and completely faithful to His word. We walk then with strength and dignity, knowing that through no action of our own the God of the Universe is behind us.

Tonight we had a girls' night: Olive Garden and Starbucks, where we quoted "Emperor's New Groove" like nobody's business and then had the opportunity to share our testimonies with each other. Sitting around that table in the warm Missouri air I could almost feel God's grace around us. Each of our stories was different in a way, but each one there had been gripped mightily by the grace of God. It was just the beginning of some of the truly awe-some things God will do this summer, and I revel in it.

Pray For Us :

1. Continue to pray for unity: again, our team is still learning to know each other and work together, now with the addition of running camp.

2. Pray for wisdom: For some of us, it's the very first week of camp ever; others, their first time staffing; still more us coming back for the 2nd or more year. However, the camp is still new, the students are different and we all need wisdom in leading it and them.

3. Pray for the students: Pray all the knowledge and truth they learn this week will be strongly tempered with grace. Pray a deeper knowledge, and then love, of God will be rooted deep in their hearts.

Spring and Camp Preparation

Spring has once again worked its magic and found a way to cram an event into every nook and cranny of these bi-polar May days. The weather simply refuses to co-operate and rain rapidly chases sunshine away for days at a time, only to give way to the sun again. It doesn't stop, and neither do I. I haven't stopped since April, May is manic. Beach trips, coffee shops, ladies' luncheons, girls' nights, brownie sundae Sunday's, graduations, retirement parties and so goes the circus. Oh, and finals, too. I managed to incorporate Calvin and Hobbes into my psychology final. I was immensely pleased with myself for finding a textbook example of the Pre-operational period in Cognitive Development. Running on a combination of coffee and adrenaline and sugar seems to be par for the course these last 2 weeks. This week, I'm heading full throttle into summer and pulling together all the last minute odds-and-ends before camp on Sunday.

Tonight I decided I would crawl into bed while the family was otherwise occupied and just read. I've been doing a ton of that lately, mostly for school and then because I want to finish all these books before I leave for camp. Otherwise they end up on the I-became-otherwise-occupied-so-abandoned-you-to-remain-forever-here-shelf. Those of you who read undoubtedly have a similar sort of location for those books. I just finished up Unfashionable by Tullian Tchividjian this afternoon and my next stop is Think by John Piper. At the same time I'm trekking my way through 993 pages of glorious fantasy in The Wise Man's Fear. Honestly, this is my favorite item on my "To-Do-Before-Camp" list. I love reading, especially in my backyard with iced coffee and strawberries. (I'm considering making that a part of my daily routine). Another thing on my to-do list is finishing the 5th season of E.R. My friends inform me this is old school, but I love the show and mom and I are trying desperately to finish before I go. Also on the list are important things like packing.....but that's boring, so I won't elaborate.

Sunday morning the sunday school lesson was on Psalm 16- God is for Us. Psalm 16 is one of my favorite Psalms, and I'm going to try and memorize it this summer while I'm away at camp.

"I say to the Lord, 'You are my Lord; I have no good apart from you.' As for the saints in the land, they are the excellent ones, in whom is all my delight." (vs. 2-3).

Two things come to mind reading these verses:

Firstly, there comes a point during camp where you truly say "I have no good apart from God"- the point where you're so exhausted emotionally, physically; when you don't want to think through yet another mealtime conversation; where you have such a tendency towards irritability it's obvious any good is not from you. This is not what I want. I want to be able to say I have no good apart from God right now. When my only problems are how to pack my suitcase under 50 lbs and finishing required reading before camp.

Secondly, "saints...in whom is all my delight." I meet a lot of people throughout the course of 8 weeks. Fellow saints. Some I rub shoulders with from 7 am to 11:30 pm for 5 days straight. Those are my students- my girls. The rest are my teammates. We work together all day, every day. Sometimes we rub each other the wrong way. Mostly, though, we learn to work as a team. From the very moment we step onto the Oklahoma Weslyan Campus, it is my prayer that my team sees each other as "excellent ones" in whom to delight.

For the next 8 weeks, then, I will travel all over the East Coast with Worldview Academy. As much as it is possible, I will update you weekly. This will probably be in the form of pictures more than writing, but we'll see. In the meantime, I ask that you would keep the Northeast team in your prayers. We need as much of it as we can get, as it is only God's grace that keeps us running strong for His glory. Here are a few specific things you can be praying for during our first week of staff training:

1. Pray for unity in our team. This first week sets the tone for all 7 weeks of camp and is crucial to developing the sort of team that will encourage, edify, and build up its members.

2. Pray for energy. For all of us it is an adjustment to a non-stop schedule, but for those of us coming from the West Coast (me!), it's also an adjustment to the time zone, which is 2 hrs. ahead of CA.

3. Pray for love. Amidst all the logistics of camp crammed into 4 short days, it's easy to let quiettimes and my desire to love God fall to the wayside. I get so caught up in doing and glorifying I forget I must first love God before I can glorify Him. Pray then, for love, that the faculty and directors and staff would not forget why we have gathered together in the first place.

My room is in turmoil at the moment. Everything needing to be packed is half in my suitcase, half out. I am excited! I am confident God will work marvelously this summer, in Worldview's three teams, in all the students attending camp- and I can't wait to see it. I can't wait to share it with you, thank you for all your prayers!

Speaking of Joy

"...The salt of joy is sorrow, a touch of tears. If we in our present mortal state met joy in her fullness, we would drown in laughter. We would be blinded and struck dumb by gladness and mirth. This may sound a pleasant way to die, but it probably would be undendurable. To be struck by unmanageable shafts of infinite sweetness would quake and crack our being into a billion pieces- it would break our hearts. Thus, instead of being explosive in us, joy is calmed and watered down like a potent wine with a note of gravity, loss, and sorrow."

~Suprised by Laughter: The Comic World of C.S. Lewis by Terry Lindvall (emphasis my own)