wild toes.

Climbed to the top of Horsetail Falls in our bare feet today! Mmmm I am so HAPPY about all the granite and to have such crazy good friends! California wins again.

aqui.

cliff jumping with amy, my soul sis

Connecting with God, with people, with myself, is so freaking hard sometimes! And I am not the kind of person to just “see how things go”; I’m all about consciously-made choices and sticking with them. The first week at camp, I was so frustrated because of so many new faces that I was going to have to connect to. I just wanted to be friends with the friends I already had, and I wanted to get down to work, do my training for Challenge Course with my boys, couldn’t believe I would have to work with girls after having been the only one last summer…I was irritated and confused and disconnected. Probably selfish too. Mmmyeah, definitely.

Bottom line, I just don’t think I was ready for camp to hit my so hard and so fast. On the drive up, Cameron, Danielle and I were in pieces, praying in between tears (Cam wasn’t crying. Cam is a man.) because we didn’t feel ready- we were feeling disconnected when it was quickly becoming absolutely imperative to be connected.

But the people I was afraid I wouldn’t connect with are the people who have attached themselves to me; they have thrown ropes over my walls and climbed up to look me straight in my defensive eyes. And I find myself repeating “I’m here. I’m here. I’ m here” with all the words blending together. Dean works with me and has quickly become my loyal brother-friend. Taking up slack and making me laugh hard on a regular basis. He lets me sing loud and out of tune when he plays his guitar and we tandem ride the Giant Swing in our seat harnesses (breaking the rules…!). He exemplifies a good friend. All the guys on Challenge Course do. Tammy, the director’s wife, lets me make coffee whenever I want in the programming office and lets me know when it’s done so I can come sneak some into my Kleen Kanteen.  I don’t have a phone anymore, and Rachel lets me borrow hers on my days off, no extra charge! Camp is comforting hard work. It’s like coming back to my family.

And this week was family camp (which makes me miss my real family SO MUCH)! There were 560 extra people here! So many people to care for, to be polite to! And my patience is super limited- I can put up with rocks and house plants. But from the very beginning of the week, someone would break down my defense. A little girl named Caroline wanted me to talk her through the climbing wall- she wanted to reach the top so bad, her heart was in it. At first, I was irritated, but she started out strong and by the end she was cruising and I was yelling “keep going!” She rang the cow bell at the top and that night fell asleep in my lap at the nightly campfire program. A 7 year old boy named Teagan with blonde surfer dude hair came to help me carry ropes and harnesses. And this afternoon, he ran up to me, ramming his tiny body into my legs in a bear hug and told me he missed me when I was gone on my day off. His family was always thanking me for everything I was doing, but I don’t know what I’m doing! But their energy rubbed off on me, and I am now so happy to be here. I am wide open and THANKFUL, choosing to be connected and sewing God into the corners of my heart.

I see Jesus in these kids. In their parents. In the staff. In the meadow and the trails I run every afternoon. I feel His grace and persistence. Which fills my hope cup because I was not ready for this. But I am renewed because He is ready for everything.  

departures & arrivals.

"where is the life we have lost in living?" -ts. eliot

the time in spain

The road to California has been twisty-turny-upside-downy. Wild. Unplanned. Unmapped. I hadn't slept in the same place twice before I arrived at camp.

- Matt and I drove from Walla Walla to his house in Angwin
- We slept outside of Yosemite in the wilderness on a tarp (where I climbed the hardest route I ever have! 5.10d)
- I crashed on the couch at our friend Bobby's ranch house, then abandoned in Folsom (we took samples of everything at the farmers market)
- Then taken in by Rachel (climbed a tree in a lake, and ate Euro-style in the park) and put up in her pool house.
- We were dropped off with our backpacks again by Jason (who took us to his grandparent's home for dinner on a whim. They are generous and South African and make me LAUGH) on a street corner in Sacramento at midnight (don't tell my mom!)
- Where Danielle picked us up and took us back to Angwin
- Where Dani and I set up our hammocks on Cameron's porch and fell asleep till the sun's hot hot heat got our blood pumping again...


The freedom of it all was so sweet, no sugar added. We had so many highs- driving fast towards sunrises, climbing massive granite faces of rock, running around the California Capital Building, hiking Smith Rocks, singing every Third Eye Blind song (and making up most of the lyrics because they are so hard to understand!). And we sometimes had lows where Matt and I passively overlooked each other. Sitting in Starbucks reading one day, I could see him itching to leave, but not wanting to leave me there alone. I told him I needed alone time, and he walked back into Rachel's neighborhood in Folsom.

 But it was so imperative. Necessary. Adventure. And after so little sleep and so much MOVEMENT, here-

Leoni. Leoni. Leoni.

HallelujahthankyouJesus.

yosemite sunrise

we scrambled out of the woods at 5am where we were sleeping to catch the sun coming up over the granite walls on tuesday. our new friend rob from sonora and his 6-year old son, brodie (who can name all the stone faces in the valley, along with knowing the stories of how they got their names, and can also climb 5.7 cracks), played guides to our climbing adventures that day. we were blessed. so blessed blessed blessed. i am blessed to be a witness to such wonders.

good things are free.

When I was in Spain, a big "problem" that the American students faced was the food in the cafeteria. It obviously lacked flavor. And it wasn’t home cooked, but people had been working all day in the kitchen to put it on our plates, I tried to really appreciate that. But the negative reactions to it caused a scene, a rebellion, an outcry of disgust among many of the students. As Americans, receiving less than what our American dollars had paid for, we felt entitled to something better. Our money meant we deserve the best, we deserve more, right? Being in the presence of people who feel entitled is uncomfortable. Uncomfortable and upsetting and confusing. 

I was sitting at dinner one night and a guy set his tray down at the seat across from me and the words "this is going to make me throw up" spilled out of his lips. The blood instantly rushed to my face and I felt the urge to slam my fists on the table and upturn my tray of questionable food onto his lap. My best friend Ben said he wished he could put people who say things like that at a table full of delicious food and make them eat every last bite of it, while surrounded by starving orphans who can't touch a bite of it.

Remembering the situation reminded me of something Rob Bell said: "You have a sense that you don't have that much because you see people who have even more." Which sort of...kind of…lightly led to this:

I quit buying clothes last September 1^st. Clothes and shoes. And bags. And accessories. I won’t buy any until next September 1st. It started as a fast, an act of pursuing God, but has morphed into a handful of life lessons. It’s a small act, but it has become more meaningful to me. See- it’s just that I've always had a closet full of clothes! I felt entitled and free to have whatever I wanted, but I wanted to become void of the option to buy myself into physical change to make myself feel better. I wanted to learn how to accept the generosity of others. A person can live on so little.

Clothes can define who a person is! Clothes are the paint that makes up the portrait of a personality in our materialistic society. And that's a little unnerving and makes me squirm because I don't want to be just what I look like on the outside. I gave away a lot of stuff before I began, trying to keep everything at a minimum- setting myself up to give and receive.

It’s hard.   

My insecurity roams like a hungry lion in the night- subtle and poised. I still have days where I look in my drawers and think I have nothing to wear. That I’m too big to wear those pants, too short, my hair is a mess (oooh, that has nothing to do with clothing, it’s always a mess!). It has made me stand around in my underwear for long mornings while I think about how comfortable I can be in my OWN skin. The solution to feeling good about yourself can come from how you look, not how you feel about what is on the inside- what’s on the inside isn’t always beautiful either. You want to be loved and accepted for whom you are underneath everything- and I don’t mean you want people to accept you walking around naked- but obviously, blatantly, there is more to you than your wardrobe. But I’m sure I’m not the only one that’s found that it is hard to wear your true self and be honest with the people around you.

That’s another thing- accepting the generosity of others is hard. My tendency is to help others, fix their problems, feed and clothe them cause that’s what Jesus would do right?! But I don’t let others in to help me because I usually don’t want to be someone who has problems that need to be remedied by some do-gooder like me. So I deprive people of the thing I, myself, find so fulfilling. Being vulnerable is intimidating when being independent is so easy. I had to ask my mom to buy me new sandals, because I wore holes in my other pair. I put them on and it felt like the time I painted my toenails bright red after camp had ended and suddenly, I felt so beautiful despite all the dirt I had been covered in all summer. New things have become sanctuaries of new life in a tiny world of used clothing.

So it has been a little easy too :)

People are my riches. Love is solid gold. Discovering people who really don’t mind how you look is really great, too! You have no idea! Discovering people who notice when you dress up is really great. Friends who let me dig through their drawers are saints, willing to give the shirt off their literal backs. I have fewer attachments to material things. This experience is different. I was listening to a talk by Shane Clairborne, he talks about the Amish and this hit me: "We don't think that our beauty comes from what we wear, but from who we are. It's not about what name brands we advertise, but it's about letting our light shine in other ways." And when you let your light shine in other ways, you don't always see what it lights up. 


I interviewed my mom's co-worker for my World Religions class. She is a passionate, God-inspired woman, whom I respect and adore. She opened up about her spiritual life, noting her major beliefs and major downfalls, one of which is attachment to her stuff. And I thought "oh an opportunity to WITNESS!" but she beat me to it! My mom had told her about my "fast" and she told me how it made her want to be more aware of who she is thankful for rather than what she wants.

We are told we need more of bigger, better, the best! Because that will make us happy people. But there is where I have always been proven dramatically wrong. So much of this is obvious- maybe my point is that I just want to take Jesus seriously. I want to be self-sacrificing. To appreciate every blessing placed into my tiny, incapable hands. To be full of generosity every day, all day. Small practice, big lessons.

Rob Bell also says: "What can you do to be more generous? What is the next step for you? You have been blessed. What can you give? Who are you going to bless?"

That’s exciting to think about :). 

If I am the dreamer, then Thou art the dream

If I am the pebble, then Thou art the stream

If I am the sapling, then Thou art the beam

Thou art the laughter, Thou art the dream

Thou art the dream

-branches

postponed

"I love deadlines.  I love the whoosing noise they make as they go by." -Douglas Adams