The Brothers In Town

Matthew and David in Seattle. Two different worlds coming together made for a great weekend, which definitely climaxed at the party saturday night. To have so many people I know meet the brothers was the coolest experience I've had in a long time. We thought about going out at some point but had too good of a dance party at the house. We stepped it up several notches - there was no need to dance anywhere else.
I hope I gave them a pretty good experience of Seattle. Running around Green Lake, Zoka's and Peete's, East Lake Bar, Sushi, Pike's Market, Golden Gardens, volleyball, and some good views of the city happened. Sleep didn't happen...mostly because two of us were sleeping on the floor every night, a cheap trip for the bros but not exactly plush. But we hadn't had that kind of time together in a long time, and I'm thankful for that. It was special to have family come to where I was instead of heading back to see them, which made Seattle feel a little closer to home.

Grandma

I felt led to write and to continue to remember last weekend, to remember my grandma who passed away last weekend, to remember everything about who she was and what she represented in our family.

Matthew came up with the idea of writing down memories of Grandma for my mom, and I was writing at the airport on the way to Louisville. I just started writing 'I remember' at the start of each sentence, and with each sentence came more and more stories and scenes, and all of a sudden my heart was swelling and the tears came. My mind entered back to the house, the kitchen and the living room, and the yard, and the trees and the street. I was struck how much I remembered that house, the trips in the summer, the place where I grew to know all my cousins, the place where family grew in each of us to hold so much importance.

And then, the same family all met again at Grandma's funeral. And I continue to think about that service, and looking across the pews and seeing every one of us in tears. And there is something about that moment that feels holy, and it feels like the greatest honor we could give her. And at the time it was all we wanted to do. I could see how much we all wanted to grieve, how much we wanted that space to be able to do so, to allow our hearts to take over, and allow us to honor everything she was. There is nothing worse than the pretense of being ok when all you want to to is grieve, and I am thankful that we could grieve, and hope we can for a long time and to have that be ok.

I am reminded of the importance of remembering, how in remembering my heart grows soft, how longing for what was inevitably causes me to then long more and more for what will come.

We Painted!

Finally! Knocked it out in about 4 hours. The color turned out so well (called Ryegrass). And the room looks sweet. We made some changes to it, and cleaned all the areas under the couches and such that have not been moved and cleaned for quite awhile, so we all feel like brand new. Good to have a little something different before the upcoming year begins next week.

Narcissistic Illusion

Some reflections on narcissism...

An emaciated soul
Is one that has run for so long on narcissistic illusions
That it can do nothing but vomit up any piece of reality and wholeness
One that resigns and sacrifices any fragile self left for the comfort of illusion
One that sacrifices any life left in place of the controllable, mundane, and ordinary

There is no sorrow, for illusions cannot be grieved
In place is the high tower of narcissism
Where no other soul can get near
Looking down everything is small, the size of this life, the size of this self

Its perfection ends up simply being the case because of its utter minute being
It knows not life, but instead what it means to be so safe as to be nothing
In attempting to hold onto something it has essentially become nothing

And the sheer madness of it all, what is so infuriating
Is its perfection in illusion that provides the appearance of such grandiosity, such supposed wholeness, which could not be farther from the truth
The madness is the irony - a perfection so attained that it has finally attained nothingness


I wrote out those words, and what hit me was the continual reference to perfection, and the paradox that comes out of having something so together that you essentially have nothing. There is something about anomaly and imperfection creating more life and not less. Yet how often in relationships I want to be something else, something not human, hold onto narcissism, and consequently end up living a small, pretentious, and mundane existence. The more I desire to not be human, the closer I get to be nothing at all.

Reminded on Living

I came across this writing the other night, a section of a book on Jim Elliott, a missionary who died and left us with a number of beautifully written journals. The one that always stuck out to me the most I read again last night. I am always moved by his passion. As the veil is lifted here at school and I see so many things that have been hidden, in a strange way I find myself wanting to be my own God. A miserable way to live. Especially when I am reminded of the passion of a heart that is caught up in delight with the real thing. Here's a bit of his passion. What a glorious way to live.

"Because, O God, from Thee comes all, because from Thine own mouth has entered us the power to breathe, from Thee the sea of air in which we swim and the unknown nothingness that stays it over us with unseen bands; because Thou gavest us from the heart of love so tender, mind so wise and hand so strong, Salvation; because Thou art Beginning, God, I worship Thee.









Because Thou art the end of every way, the goal of man; because to Thee shall come of every people respect and praise; their emissaries find Thy throne their destiny; because Ethiopia shall stretch out her hands to Thee, babes sing Thy praise; because Thine altar gives to sparrows shelter, sinners peace, and devils fury; because 'to Thee shall all flesh come,' because Thou art Omega, praise."

Dust

Coming into the local coffee shop, opening up my laptop, usually the first thing I notice is it's covered with dust. It doesn't seem dirty in my place. Something about the lighting, the atmosphere of a new place, provides the right illumination for me to see how dirty it really is.

Experiencing this the other day, right away I related it to my interaction with people. I can be going through the entire day, week, month, doing my best to not be seen. Then, at the right time, that person chooses to bring the right amount of light to step into my world, inevitably naming the things I don't want to name myself.

The person I experience this exposure with the most; my counselor (he does his job well, not always a fun thing...) The image I have is back in elementary school where we'd make the little volcanos erupt. The drop of baking soda into the mixture ignites the reaction. And I feel like I can't step into that office and sit on that couch without there being some inevitable reaction.

It is really more what he doesn't do than what he does. Usually I am doing everything I can to keep from being the one that casts that light, never wanting to create that awkward confrontation. He is there, speaking into what he sees and feels, not hiding, not blaming, just there. So often I feel like I have to be doing so much, but I see more how it's what I let myself not do that is needed - if I want to expose or be exposed - if I want to cast that light. A big if. It cuts, but the cut somehow brings life. And that is a blessed wounding. Blessed are the wounds of a friend.

Updates, Comments

The first thing to mention is a phenomenal Patty Griffin show. I think she mesmerized everyone with her stage presence and her strikingly powerful voice.

Well one of the highlights for me was nearly running into Dave Matthews on the way to the bathroom (small bladder finally paying off). He gave me a smile and I probably reciprocated with a confused, stupor-ish look. He ambled away with a very pronounced limp, and that was that.

As for other notes, I watched Peaceful Warrior this weekend, a movie that held some eerily similar views that the program here at MHGS has. Nick Nolte played this guy named Socrates, who consistently strummed off one liners of considerable depth and meaning. I think my favorite was the idea that a true warrior is one who knows how to sit in 100% vulnerability. Paradox, things never staying the same, and fully experiencing the here and now were a few more of the themes.

I also watched Freedom Writers. It was well done with a great, true story that seemed fitting for me in taking the Multicultural class I'm in. I've been reading this book on the history of multicultural america, and it is rediculous. It is so hard to read, because it is the truth about our country. Whites who conquered and viciously abused anyone who got in their way, naming their actions as the 'destiny of God.' Starting with Native Americans, then African Americans, Chinese, Japanese, Irish...the book is very weighty, and even saying that seems so trivial. So many stories that are worthy to be grieved over for centuries. How to even approach this?

I guess my two cents about what's going on in class that I don't like is when we (me and my caucasion classmates) try to defend our own racism today, when we want to give ourselves a voice instead of sitting in the discomfort of being wrong. Even when people say they are angry at the racism today, that just kind of erks me because in a sense then, we are attempting to say the right thing, and be the right ones in class, who aren't racist, who just need someone to hear us and know why we act this way or that. I think bottom line, we just need to sit in being wrong for a little bit at least, and know what it feels like to be the wrong ones for once - what any other race has to experience every day.

Carolina

"I had a dream last night, stood beneath an orange sky, with my brother and my sister standing by..."




The whole fam got together at our rustic cottage in the smoky mountains of north carolina. I think it was the most active week I've had in quite awhile, a good break from sitting on my butt in class, reading, or writing. They stocked the river soon after we got there, Matthew and I pulled out 7 trout each in a couple hours the first time down there. We were pretty good at forming somewhat of a schedule, a good set of rituals, each involving either playing or eating. Often started the morning out at the coffee shop, then got ready to head down to the river for fishing or tubing or volleyball. After dinner was back into town for ice cream, then came back to the cottage for a fire, listening to ray lamontagne, passin' back a couple beers. That's a pretty dang good routine if you ask me.

This was the first time being with the fam since the counseling program really shook things up in me. Interesting how seeing things in a way made me feel more distant, more removed, things not as I so often perceived them to be. What appeared in the past to be connection was really distance. However, ironically, this entering into reality, this seeing the distance, actually makes way for more connection. Seems like sometimes you have to get farther away to get closer.

Just one paradox after the other if you ask me...

Vashon

I'm about done with my time on Vashon Island, after two months spending time with a kid with bipolar disorder. It has been fun, and hard, and then not so hard....at least a lot easier than most of the autistic and behaviorally challenged kids I've spent time with this year. That is in large part due to the context I get to spend time with him on an island, on a large piece of land that surrounds his house, including a bunch of chickens, goats, cows, and turkeys (I forgot how much I like animals). After tutoring (which is the hard part emotionally during the day), the second half of the day involves planting on their small farm, water balloon fights, airsoft guns, forts, and painting among others. I also really enjoy riding the ferry over there every day. I will really miss this place. And most importantly, I'll really miss this kid (have to be ambiguous for the case) who I've just really started to get to know. Both in our connection when we laugh and play and in the recognition of his despair and hopelessness; the tough times when I get a glimpse into the war going on inside. Again, that's probably all I can say legally, but I am thankful for the time and sad it will end.

I Love Summer

Looks like I've found my home for the summer: the beach at Golden Gardens. After our hip-hop class we got something to eat and headed over to the soft sand and surreal views. I don't think I could ask for much more than sand volleyball on the water with sun setting on the mountains as a backdrop. I guess waves and warmer water would be even more of a bonus, but this more than works for me, and spending my whole weekend there was a telling of the many times to come this summer.
(Though I have to say that I have not tried Alki beach, located on the other side of the Puget Sound, which instead of the mountains, has the Seattle skyline as the backdrop.)

Portland Revisited

Another weekend in Portland. Eden played a show at the Hawthorne Theatre, a great place close to Mandi and Kathy's where we stayed.

On the way down we ended up talking a lot about the Object Relations book we're reading (grad student nerds), but it really led to some amazing conversation, which will probably make it to another blog...invaluable to be discussing this stuff as we're going through it. I am grateful to have friends to really be able to do that, who are as excited to talk about this stuff as I am, who don't just want to coast through this program. Could not be any more different than undergrad for me.

We grilled some burgers and had some drinks before Eden played (btw it's spring and I need a grill) and then after the concert we came back and grilled some more.

For sure the biggest laugh came on the way back, where we ended up at a fairly confusing stoplight/train track. Long story short, we ended up somewhere in the middle of where we were supposed to stop and the train tracks. Red lights blinking, I looked up to see the train gates directly above, descending quickly. We all froze as they landed on top of the car. Lynn backed up as the antenna held one of the gates, eventually letting go, flinging the gate back and forth. The train passed and we went on our way. A little scary how close we got to the train, but also probably the most I've laughed in a long time.

In a Nutshell part 2

Thought I'd give a short summary of what the past trimester has been for me. Instead of the string of statements I set out last time, I wanted to share what has been the highlight for me, my practicum II class (for those of you that don't know it's where we counsel each other). Right from the beginning there was something special about the group of 10 people.

So amazing to really feel like you were cared for, like people really wanted to see you, and that set up the possibility for each of us to risk enough to actually allow something greater than ourselves to happen. It was a taste of true community, and whenever that happens you are always left thinking how sweet that is and how little it happens in everyday life. Even thinking about it now, remembering, it feels to die for. Evokes so much longing.

It was culminated in our last meeting, where we each brought in something reflecting our experience with each other. I decided to write something of a poem. When it was my turn, I looked down at the poem, and I was struck by the depth of the words in front of me. They were so weighty. So packed with experience and meaning. I tried to speak them but could not. Instead came the tears. Eventually I got going, and slowly made it through, pausing often with each swell of emotion. I felt so vulnerable, so exposed. Though that did not feel like shame; instead I felt so much strength in speaking and naming the beauty held in each sentence, in each story, in each person. I was claiming the beauty I saw. Speaking into life and not allowing shame to come in and snatch that life away from me. To be given the space to speak and name the beauty of what we had was, as I said above, to die for.

I thought I'd share a bit of the poem, though only the beginning and the end due to confidentiality of posting online - the middle section highlights each of the individual experiences of the group. In place of the middle section I thought I'd put a picture that seemed to symbolize to me the beauty that comes out of wide open spaces. When we allow the space for each other to truly show up, when we don't let shame come in and take away our glory, something beautiful happens. I call the picture 'unashamed sky.'


"Those who function out of fear, seek security. Those who function out of trust and risk, seek freedom." - William Hurt
We came seeking freedom, and grew to know the great cost that freedom calls forth. Risk, trust, tender tears, harsh tears, fierceness, feistiness, much space, little space, familiar safe camps, unfamiliar darkness, eyes closed, hands held out, risk, and more risk....

...We speak on behalf of freedom. Freedom to risk that we may utter the words of our true selves. For to speak the true words of our heart is to speak the words of God. We have seen glimpses of each of our hearts, we have seen the true words, and they hold the treasures of the Kingdom.

Portland

A couple pics from the trip down to portland where I stayed with my friends Mandi and Kathy, to add to Justin's post. Good times. The way down we got to be one of the first to hear Eden's new CD coming out soon. The highlight though had to be when Eden and Justin and I were sleeping the family room, and in the middle of the night, pitch black, I wake up to hear Justin reciting something that had a little taste of our faith, hope, and love and marriage and family classes. It was something the like of "The family, not my loss, but their glory." Even in his sleep J trying to grow glory.

The pics...Justin wearing Eden's cardigan (I forget how that transpired), me testing out a few drinks, and Justin with his leftovers contained within a sword made out of aluminum. It was good to get away. Hopefully next time it will be to the mountains.

More Quotations...

"Every woman is in some way searching for or running away from her beauty and every man is looking for or avoiding his strength. Why? In some deep place within, we remember what we were made to be, we carry with us the memory of gods, image-bearers walking in the Garden. So why do we flee our essence? As hard as it may be for us to see our sin, it is far harder still for us to remember our glory." - Brent Curtis

I feel like it is far easier for me not to think of the glory you hold in who you are, because then I don't have to be disappointed when our engagement with each other is much less than glorious. When I really don't like who you are, it is much easier to say that you don't hold much value than to take responsibility for the ways we have disconnected. Contempt for you is so much easier than mourning what has not happened.

To truly know and believe in the glory you hold calls me to pursue that part of you, to love you in a way that calls both of us out of our hiding, where we have to decide whether to show our face or not.

How many times I have written off and been written off by others as uninteresting or inconsequential. To feel the depth of glory in every human being calls me to continue to pursue you, because I know that underneath my assumptions of who you are there is so much more. There is enough beauty and creativity and sweetness and strength in your heart to deeply move and shake mine. How hard is it to know that when we don't like each other! Assumptions are much easier to live in than glory.

And it is far easier to think of what is than what we were made to be.

Liminal Spaces in Time

"If thou dost more rely upon thine own reason or industry, than upon that power which brings thee into the presence of Christ, it will be long before thou become enlightened; for God will have us perfectly subject unto him, that being inflamed with his love, we may transcend the narrow limits of human reason." Thomas Kempis

I came across this reading the other day and it evoked these thoughts in me. Thinking of counseling, I was reminded that despite my attempts to get the right words out there, I do not reason with someone's soul, I engage it with my own. It is in knowledge and reason that we know of time and limits, and it is in love that we know of eternity held in a moment, of expanses of depth and meaning and beauty that transcend any reason or formula. We were made for those moments, those liminal places, where the boundaries between what is now and what will be are blurred. It is in those liminal places where the kingdom is as here as it can be. And still not quite yet.

Risky Worship

"Even the most courageous among us only rarely has the courage for that which he really knows." - Nietzsche

In Isaiah 30:9-11, the people ask the prophet for illusions. They want to hear 'pleasant things', things that will make them feel nice. They don't want to hear the truth. They want lies. They ask for pretense.

And that is me. Because I know that if I really were to let myself express the deeply hidden, tender wounds of my heart, I would most likely weep uncontrollably - and if I really let myself go, I would probably destroy the very room I am in. I got to experience a bit of that feeling of truth this past week, and it felt like grace to have someone say he would vouch for me in my desire to throw a chair through the wall. That my story is worth more than a room was new to me.

It is even more new for me to hear that God would call that worship. I'd much rather take the easier route of worship and sing songs on Sunday than take the risk of valuing my story enough to actually let it affect me, and those things (or people) around me.

Severe Rush of Life

Self-portrait

It doesn’t interest me if there is one God
Or many gods.
I want to know if you belong or feel
Abandoned.
If you know despair or can see it in others.
I want to know
If you are prepared to live in the world
With its harsh need
To change you. If you can look back
With firm eyes
Saying this is where I stand. I want to know
If you know
How to melt into that fierce heat of living
Falling toward
The center of your longing. I want to know
If you are willing
To live, day by day, with the consequence of love
And the bitter
Unwanted passion of your sure defeat.

I have been told, in that fierce embrace, even the gods speak of God.

-David Whyte
From Fire In the Earth

Can I speak of a God who creates a love that He cannot even control? Can I know a God who allows His own self to not know, to wait, expectantly sit, and let His creation experience the beautiful and dreadful tenacity of love? In that moment, even the gods speak of God. Where God takes a deep breath and experiences the severe rush of life.

If this is not the case, can God not be moved?

Caleb

This weekend at class we got into some good niece and nephew moments, and I brought up one of my favorite ones I had heard of from my nephew Caleb, the coolest 3 year old around, a little miniature, uninhibited version of my older brother.

Caleb came out of the bathroom with no clothes on, flailing around, shouting, "mommy, mommy, look at my penis! It's huge! My penis is huge!"

Raw, uncut Caleb right there. How cool is it to see the freedom in pronouncing whatever it is he is excited about. How cool is that and how sucky is it when shame comes in. I think I have some serious envy in that freedom of self-expression. He cracks me up so much. So joyful to see his face light up, his playful side completely illuminated. I delight in his foolishness. How much I wish I could delight in my own foolishness.









What a stud.

Rich

More and more I see how it is in the surprise, and not formulation, where life's richest experiences lay. How often is it that in the conversation where you really see the other person, it is not formulated by control, but in the letting go to let yourself be who you are. In the risk of allowing yourself to really be seen, to really be known, and to have someone delight in that presence - that feels like really living.

I believe that it is in the idiosyncrasies where we fall in love, the little things that can only come from the whole of who we are - it had always been that look that could've only been hers when she had my heart. Sitting with close friends, it is not the topic of conversation, but simply the people you are with. And it is not in the joke, but the ensuing laugh that can only be yours that makes the moment.

It is surprise, it is the grace that comes in not because of what you have done, but what you have allowed there to be. Strange how it feels like grace for me to actually allow myself to enter into conversations with people who will simply enjoy the part of me that is really me. And those relationships feel like grace, because they are so rich, and they have so much life.

My Inner World

True freedom for me has everything to do with my ability to believe in the fact that I am worth it to be free.