argh. it feels like it's going to be one of those days. you know, the ones when the whole universe is against you? well, i guess not that bad...
waaah. i just want to watch elizabethtown. with val and christine. val and christine, why are you on the other side of the planet when i want you here?

when grocery shopping becomes roommate bonding time and house meeting fun, you know you've got mad skillz at enjoying life. and we do. life is good, very good.

in other thoughts, the move is creeping up on me oh-so-quickly. and i am getting excited...

there are so many people i really love in this world. hey, you! i love you. yes, i meant you. so just remember that: you are loved.

i am so blessed by the people in my life... how do i continue to meet such amazing people? i realize more and more my identity as an extrovert... how, despite my sometimes shy-ness, i truly gain my energy from being with people. and this weekend, though long and busy, was not exhausting or stressful, but energizing, because i got to be in the company of so many people i love. and i am so glad i got to end it at the hawthorne house. being in community with children and eating a common meal are two of my favorite spiritual practices, two of the most visible and hopeful ways i see of being the church and learning to love one another. how am i so rich in friendships? i am so overjoyed, i cannot stop smiling, for my life is surrounded by so much love and beauty in the hearts of the people i have been blessed to get to know during my short time here. i truly find the abundance of life in my relationships.

well, i just gotta say: that was an awesome event. kind of like a big party. and
i am exhausted. those twelve-hour days....

and she asks why i am returning to middle earth- i mean west. the middle west. and what can i say except that while i love that things grow all year round here, i miss the seasons and their reflection of life. and while i love the new, thick feel of the huge trees that grow natively, i long for trees whose leaves change colors, and fall in the autumn. (we won't even speak about the falsities of the palms.) i miss camping in real forests. i even miss the humidity, and snow. fireflies and lakes and the country, my piece of country, and storms. my body aches for a crashing rain and the brightness of lightning and the thunderbolt's crack almost as much as for the presence of my family, and their embraces. and old friends. and memories. and familiarity. and home.

i know a place that is full of light,
that is full of dreams and visions bright;
where pleasing fancy loves to roam
and picture me once m ore at home.

there nothing comes to mar my days,
and dim for me the sun's loved rays;
to shake my faith in things divine,
and bare the cruelty of mankind.

oh! that i to that spot might flee!
that peace and love might dwell with me
and brush away the somber shrouds,
and show the lining of the clouds!
-home, zora neale hurston (though, i must say, a little more giddy than i feel...)

i am broken-hearted over virginia tech. and couldn't it have just as easily been my friends, my classmates, my sister, myself? and maybe, in some small way, it is. but i so wonder, in places like this, what it means when people call for justice to be done. because haven't we all, in many ways, contributed to the brokenness of those who lose their love of life and so break entirely? not that it may ask us all to take the blame, but lead us to love more, bring wholeness instead of brokenness. i fear that when we call for justice, what we are really asking for is revenge.

also telling, i felt, was that the headline about the shootings, with the story of our president's statement of remorse, was followed directly by a story where the same man pressed for more funding for the war... but can't we see how these are linked? if we teach violence as the answer for our national problems, how can we not expect to learn and imitate this violence? this story reveals to me a young man who felt he had no other choice, who was lost and broken, and was somehow led to violence as the last remaining answer for his problems, whatever they were. wouldn't true justice, then, to be to teach love and peace, instead of more violence and anger, to our children? would not that honor those we have lost more than finding a scapegoat to absolve our grief? would that not better prevent further violence? we cannot end violence through violence. let us instead move more passionately and aggressively toward peaceful ways of resolving conflict- within ourselves and with others. would you rather have a beautiful garden planted, a scholarship for peacemaking, a foundation for those loved by your loved one in her honor, or a law that causes greater punishment, another death, another lost child told that he has no hope?

and though i still feel like i am in a phase of mourning, though not for my own beloved, i find the small joys around me in being alive... in my first of what will surely be many walks home from work, i am blessed by the things i see and hear around me... the flowers and different homes that tell the stories of so many lives and families, the laughter of brothers playing ball behind their house, a conversation between two men passing on the street, the always funny conversations of teenagers after school. and as always, i love the diversity... in accents and faces, it is so beautiful. if there are twenty more beautiful things about biking than driving, there are another twenty that you gain by slowing down to walk... twenty things you miss when you're going faster, being more closed off to the world. i look forward to finding thirty new paths between my home and my work before i leave, to discovering new sights and observing different lives each time. and so there is joy even in the seemingly frustrating parts of life, like theft. and maybe that's what it means that God makes all things new.

hey y'all. come to my conference. fo' real. it's gonna be tight.

www.pointloma.edu/sustainable

The Lifestyles for a Sustainable World Symposium seeks to gather those from the San Diego community in order to search together for more hopeful and sustainable ways to live in our world. We find ourselves in a cultural and economic context where our everyday habits, household practices, congregational lives and business practices on the whole participate unreflectively in the gluttony of our modern hyper-consumer world. We hope to find practical ways to choose new creation and hope rather than continuing in patterns that are destructive to the environment and exploitative to our brothers and sisters around the globe.

We come together for this event to better understand how to live out sustainable practices in our lives and identify the powers that influence our choices. We hope to create space for dialogue between people with different stories, to experience the interplay between spirituality and sustainability, and to find practical actions for our own lives as well as ways to be a part of greater societal and structural change. We’ll have two keynote speakers, relating sustainability to the scientific forces behind our changing environment and to our spiritual and faith practices and beliefs, workshops that look at both the theory and practice of sustainable living, and conclude with a common meal where we can together review what we have learned and begin to practice these lifestyles of sustainability.

...and then my bike was stolen. boooooo.

i painted. but i a little shy about it. it's prettier in real life, i promise. mostly the colors. more vibrant, you know. (like me, i hope!)

wine and ice cream: so we are women.
and sexy, phenomenal women at that.

from yesterday's morning pages...

...Love... I don't know, I feel like it should do that, even just be validating who someone is... letting them know they are valuable, worthwhile, desired.. .that they are lovable... frees them up to be more honest, real, vulnerable... or just who they really are. It's like that verse - perfect love drives out fear - the fear of being rejected or disliked, deceived or laughed at - knowing you will be loved no matter what means that you can be free to act as you really feel, say what your heart is relaying, work things out. You don't have fear of being hurt as much, so you are able to give more of yourself up to others, able to discover who you really are, be open about your imperfections, try things out and fail - because there will be someone- or some others- there to still love you and say you're lovable and valuable.

You can travel through your journey of life without always being afraid of stepping off the path, and to run and dance along the path, to skip and leap and spin instead of making such tiny, measured, careful steps where each one has to be exactly right. This way is also more fun - not to mention you get farther, even if you have to get back on the path after trying the wrong side road a few times. So maybe that's part of what partnership is- being able to encourage one another to be fully alive, to fulfill your dreams, to dare to make a mistake. To live out your destiny. To discover who you were meant to be. To step out of the ruts of the measured life and try something scary.

I think maybe this is a little glimpse of something of God. It's like what Sarah was saying about how we as a body pull out the God inherent in each one of us, and so we together become more of who we were created to be. We learn from one another, resonate together, challenge one another, as a whole become more fully human; fully real- and in that become more fully like the God whose image is in each of us. I want this kind of dirty, sweaty, growing, living love - in community and in covenant.

Dare to love, dare to live. Dare to be real and take risks. And learn. And change. Always change. Always in motion, always on a journey, never arrived, always dancing. And finding joy in learning how much more there is to learn, because though if at first it is overwhelming, it brings hope of a more real life and an abundance of more joy out there to be discovered. And confusion is okay along the way. Even good.

He is Risen ~ He is Risen indeed!

and so concludes my first and best easter vigil i can imagine... silence, prayer, meditation, candles, then bells, music, food, and wine. rejoice. in what, i am still unsure, but i am sure that there is cause for rejoicing. and tonight, as i sat and contemplated, i realized that as the first disciples met together after the death, they were just as confused and lost as i am... and i don't know that i'm ever going to figure it out, really, at least not all the way. because i know a little bit of what His life meant, what kind of a Kingdom or reign He was proclaiming, but what does that mean now that He has been killed? and how does His death bring life, stretch out to heal our broken world? and what, other than great rejoicing, is His resurrection? at times there are glimpses, but never a full picture. but i am overjoyed for the glimpses. i long to live for the glimpses again.

Come, Thou Fount of every blessing,
Tune my heart to sing Thy grace;
Streams of mercy, never ceasing,
Call for songs of loudest praise.
Teach me some melodious sonnet,
Sung by flaming tongues above.
Praise the mount! I’m fixed upon it,
Mount of Thy redeeming love.

O to grace how great a debtor
Daily I’m constrained to be!
Let Thy goodness, like a fetter,
Bind my wandering heart to Thee.
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
Prone to leave the God I love;
Here’s my heart, O take and seal it,
Seal it for Thy courts above.

this month is going to fly by. (but in a good way)