its about life in a moment.. its about a moment in life. there's a difference, you know. can you see it?

Sunday, May 17, 2009

moments for courage

so i went to church again today. that's 2 weeks in a row. it's really weird to go to church. my mom's been encouraging me to considering going to church again on a regular basis, and so, i'm trying to keep a very open mind & put myself out there again. i will say i got quite a kick out of something they did at the beginning of the service... i guess they regularly tell people to take a minute, say hello to the people sitting around you - you know, introduce yourself if you see someone you dont know [its always interesting during those times right now b/c i obviously dont know anyone... but very rarely do people actually come say hello]. anyway, so today, the guy says something like 'get ready, this is gonna be uncomfortable... we want you to go say hello to someone you dont know who is sitting.on.the.other.side.of.the.room!!! and then (gasp) sit next to them all morning' [aka for everyone who comes in, sits in the exact same seat every sunday, go meet someone else & see new faces!]. i personally got a kick out of this - thought it was great. seeing as how i've sat in a different place every week i've gone to this church, and seeing as how i basically didnt know anyone, i stayed where i was at & met Betty and her niece Shadow. it was neat, though, because suddenly you looked around & there was just a completely different buzz in the air, and there were no longer empty seats between everyone [you know. that 'personal space church bubble' where there's always gotta be an empty seat between you & those strange people down the isle...]. the pastor got on stage and proceeded to explain that this whole thing was his idea... that starting about 3 weeks into his college career, he made a habit out of watching people in his classes and after 2-3 weeks, he'd sit in their seat all of a sudden just to watch their reaction! and he did this for all 4 years at college.

wasnt college great? this illustration made me laugh. and this evening, i've been thinking back to college while I've been thinking about church. it stumps me still... i realized tonight that college was like the cherry on top of one's spiritual journey (well, if one is pursuing a spiritual journey during college). for me, it meant always surrounded by your greatest friends, always able to talk [a lot. all the time] and know pretty much everything that was happening in all your friends' lives. i didnt just have a few close friends in college. there were like a good 20 people that i loved dearly. we prayed together all the time, sang & laughed and laughed more! and we went to church together. sat together. the pastor loved us - he was so thrilled to have us as part of the church. he knew us, prayed for us, supported us. while of course life went on this whole time, everyone faced challenges of one sort or another (after all, this is college & everything that goes with it), but spiritually, we had it all. really, even more than that, it was an abundance. i dont know if other people had this experience, but i look back with some seriously fond memories.

and then i start looking not quite as far back... to the years following college. and i cant help but stop and go 'what in the heck just happened?!?!' moving to a new city & no longer carrying the 'college student' title, i became just another single person in the church. the pastor didnt know me, people didnt know me... perhaps they recognized my face after a while, but i felt like a loner. it was kinda like church before college. with no roots in a church, no family members who others who know me by, even after working in the nursery 2 and a half years, i was just another face in the crowd. it sucked. BIG time. i guess that's part of the reason i gave up on church.

so going back to church now... after my 'break' of 2 years, it's kind of a scary thing. and its weird going, having no connection to anyone and, with a job where i'm here 2 days, there 3 days, completely inconsistent, i can admit that i fear that even if i start going every sunday, even if i make as big an effort as is possible to always sit by new people, introduce myself, be annoyingly talkative to people who may not be interested in meeting new people, i fear that i'll once again just be another face in the crowd. but, like i said earlier: open mind. i'm trying to keep an open mind and just maybe be open to the thought that there's someone else there that God wants me to meet because that person desperately needs a friend or someone to talk to and there's something about me that He knows would be perfectly suited for the situation. it would take some serious amounts of courage, i know that. i guess we'll see...

this morning, before church, i was listening to a pastor who i enjoy (francis chan... pastor at Cornerstone Church in Simi Valley, CA... i've mentioned him before). anyway, he gave a great illustration. made me laugh, of course. was talking about how the world's strongest man goes to his church (yes, meaning the one off those 'World's Strongest Man' competition you see on tv at 2am). he said the guy could bench-press 1100 pounds. can you even imagine?! i cant even fathom... and the guy is married. his wife - yeah, she can press 400 pounds!! a girl! that can benchpress 400 pounds. ha. yeah, pick your chin up off the ground. they've got kids.
and you could guess what he's about to say, right? but he says just imagine if their kids were these scrawny little runts of the group and how odd that would look compared to their parents! (of course, not to say there'd be anything wrong with that! just making a point of course!) the moral of the story was that it should look strange for people who believe in Jesus (who the Bible calls children of God) to be timid & afraid & unbelieving, compared to God the Father, who is all-powerful, fully loving, perfect at everything, and through the Holy Spirit, living INSIDE those who believe. and so, be courageous!

"Be strong and of good courage; do not be afraid, nor be dismayed, for the LORD your God is with you wherever you go.” -Joshua 1:9

Tuesday, May 05, 2009

Hello Pacific Northwest!

So, this past weekend, I used the free ticket I'd earned with Southwest to go on a very random adventure! For years, I've wanted to see the Pacific Northwest, but I've never had a good reason to go or money to go! Thanks to nearly 2 years with the FDIC, my free ticket replaced a ticket that would've otherwise cost me $500! and hotel points allowed me to stay at a nice hotel, so all I had to pay for was a rental car, gas, and food! On the flight from Seattle to Vegas, I decided to write out my thoughts from my weekend... to post here, of course!

I flew out of Little Rock at 1:10pm Friday afternoon, changing planes in Vegas and landing in a sunny Seattle at 7:00pm - pacific time! I picked up my rental car (of course it was a dodge calibur... i'm SO not a fan!) and tried to find my way to my hotel in Tacoma. With, to me, a ton of traffic, I was confident i'd made the right decision NOT to go into Seattle... with such a limited amount of time, I knew it wouldnt be worth it (i dont like big cities much anyway!) I finally did find my hotel, got to my room, planned out the next day & crashed!

Saturday morning I was up at 5:15am and on the road an hour later. Glad to turn off Hwy 5 and get away from most of the other cars, all I knew was head west to Aberdeen & Hoquiam then turn onto the 101. That was my guide for the day... stop wherever I wanted, dont forget to keep gas in the car, and make it back to my hotel in Tacoma at the end of the day. And so, here we go!

LOVED the little town of Aberdeen (or maybe it was Hoquiam.. they kinda blended together). I'd love to know the history there. it actually looked a bit run down in areas, but the houses - LOVED the houses! very colorful and quaint.

LOVED getting to see the pacific ocean!! wish I couldve spent the whole day walking the beaches. Not a lot of sand, but lots of rocks and pebbles. Would love to go to the beaches again with a friend who equally wanted to explore! (I didnt see any tidepools all day! i was sad! of course, i didnt know where to look or what to look for!)

Forks, WA / La Push / Twilight. Okay... so you may not believe me but the purpose of my trip was not because of Twilight! My Fodor guide book told me there was a place to eat in the Timber museum in Forks, so I stopped looking for lunch. Sadly, the guide book was wrong. I found a Subway & took it along in the car. While my purpose there wasnt Twilight, PLENTY of other people were there for that reason! This, of course, made me want to get the heck out of dodge even faster! So i hopped back on the road, turning on 110 to check out La Push and Rialto Beach. Forks wasnt what I'd pictured from the book. Neither was La Push. Twilight was everywhere. I saw the Forks High School sign a street over and didnt stop! Finding First Beach/La Push was complicated. going out & back on 110 was painfully slow, and it ate a world of time. My frustration was rectified a bit sunday at the airport. I saw a book in the Borders at the airport that was a Twilight movie behind the scenes. And, ah-ha - much of what you see in the movie as "Forks" isnt really Forks! I read no further - that made it all better. I didnt want the places in the books to be real - its better that the movie is shot in all these difference places & then the Twilight Forks is created. That's much more fitting! Whew!

But so by the time I got on the road to Port Angeles, it was already past 3pm. CRAP! Time now was really limited. I opted not to try to see the furthest point northwest (Neah Bay?) because it wouldve been another follow a road out and back thing. I didnt get to see any waterfalls. Merrymar (sp?) I wish I could've seen. Oh - I did go to Hoh Rain Forest and do a quick walk on the Hall of Mosses trail. I didnt stay here long (it was also an hour detour getting there and back).

So driving to Port Angeles - Lake Crescent was beautiful! Surrounded by mountains and the road followed right along the edge. It took a while though - the speed limit was 35 a good portion of the way. Finally Port Angeles welcomed me. And it turned out to be another seriously cute town!! I liked the size - it felt small but friendly. I saw a store called "Dazzled by Twilight" which made me laugh. I should've stopped and bought something cheesy. Maybe they have a website (i just looked.. didnt see one).

Finally, I saw the sign for Hurricane Ridge and headed that direction for my final "outing" of the trip. I paid my $15, which I'd conveniently not paid earlier in the day. I was excited when I headed up (now 5pm) because there were blue skies and just a small bit of drizzly rain. The drive up (18 miles) was curvy - serious drop offs along the way! but beautiful. Quickly, I could see the high mountain tops still covered in snow! I had no idea where the end of the road would be.. just kept driving. Suddenly, I was driving among the snow covered mountain tops - Holy Cow! SNOW!!!! I got to the top and went crazy! God was giving me a special treat. I couldnt believe there was snow (and I'm talking real snow like we'll NEVER see in arkansas!!) At the end of the road, there was no one else in the parking lot. If they had cameras on the parking lot, I bet I looked really funny! Funniest was that there was no view whatsoever! The fog was so think you couldnt see 20 feeet down/up the mountains! But everything was covered in snow. It was the best winter I've never had! I dont even remember if it was cold outside because I was so excited! I couldve gone snow-shoeing! I snapped a few photos - I tried to jump into them, that didnt really work! I laugh because I didnt touch the snow! It just looked too perfectly undisburbed! I didnt stay long - it was 6 or so by now and I was hungry! Of course the visitors centers werent open, so no souviners to buy.

And so I went back down the ridge and stopped by taco bell for a quick dinner (7pm!)Realizing it was over 2 hours back to the hotel (oops), decided to head that way with no stops. Sad and long. Still lots of rain and much more traffic by this time. It was nice that the sun didnt set until 9pm. So most of the way to Olympia I could still see the Sound next to me and the park at places on the other side. When I finally got to Olympia,I realized Tacoma was 28 miles away, not 8 (ouch!). I got to my hotel just before 10. I was SOO tired! 15 hours in the rental car was so long that it my shoulder actually felt dislocated! so much odd pain! I stayed up just long enough to realize my pictures didnt do justice to what I'd seen (maybe they'll look better on the computer) and then sleep came quickly!

One observation I made - so, now I know that logging is a big deal in the olympic peninsula, but i hated the drives past the huge areas where all the trees were "harvested". It looked like nature's war zone. THese areas always started as soon as you left the national park area. thank goodness the park preserves so much.

So there you have it. My very short and random trip to the Pacific Northwest. Parts of the day felt very lonely. I'd wished I had a connection to the area, particularly the native indians. I wouldve loved a glimpse into their history and daily lives. Theres something so beautiful to me about native indians... dont know what it is! i think part of me wishes their lives were different - reflecting a different ... way of living I suppose. Saturday, I'd said I didnt think i'd ever want to return to this area. After writing all this down, though, I guess I feel a bit differently. I feel thankful for the opportunity, even though my eyelids are feeling heavy again. I have a 4 hour layover in Vegas and will get back to Little Rock by 10:30. Tomorrow morning takes me right back to where I was. A job that I'm not passionate about, a life where I question purpose and long for something different. I hope that Uganda motivates my nights. And I hope I'll work hard at my job regardless - because that's the type of person I want to be.