Walking Forward

What a week. From the Ohio to Chicago to the DR to Florida to Costa Rica. So many friends, old and new, so many things to see and even more things to do (and some of which I don’t really want to).  All this going has grown in me a deeeeep appreciation for rest, for knowing what lies ahead, for being still and in one place long enough to get bored. But seeing as this is not quite possible, I will choose to walk forward and embrace the present, ready to receive what it holds.

It’s amazing the people you meet when you walk forward. It’s incredible the things you experience as you come empty, ready to receive that which is for just that, what it is, not what it should be. 

Spending time with my sister, the brilliant Kimberly, who many love and aspires to be. I’ve learned so much from her deep loyalty and conviction for what she believes to be reality. Such influence she holds, and such love for those she calls friends. Her intelligence is incredible and her potential unimaginable. What life we experienced together, even for those short days. I’m not sure if she’d say the same, but I’m thankful to have gotten to be a part of her last days there.

Then off to Santo Domingo where I wasn’t really sure what was going on or where I was staying, but again, there was provision. After meeting the nice young couple in front of me with their son, I waited for quite some time for the man with the sign that Maria said would come. It wasn’t exactly my name and there was another name I did not know, so I hesitated to go up to this stranger. But after he called for me on the pager I realized this must be him and so this kind man drove me to the hotel that’s Maria’s family owns. Moreno took care of me and gave me the key to a room where I could stay for free. Maria’s mom called to make sure I got there safely and all was taken care of. After a nice rest I called Evalina and she ended up coming to meet me. After walking up and down Zona Colonial and seeing all the new things to see I resolved to watch a man paint an incredibly beautiful scene with unbelievable ease. The painting drew me in and I just watched, feeling something move deep within. His strokes were effortless and the results faultless, oh how I would love to be a painter.

But then I saw Evalina! And her husband and his son, and she invited me to stay with her and she would drive me to the airport the next day for my flight. Seeing as I didn’t know how I would get there otherwise, I agreed graciously and we called Maria to get everything straightened out. After hearing about Christianity in the DR and eating wonderful DR food, we talked more and Maria came and joined us. So good to see her as well, what fun we’ll have in April. We had an adventure at Yogun Fruz where the guy working there was very interested that I was American and talked to us most of the time we were there. Then he walked us home to make sure we got there safe and soon after Maria left.

I woke up pretty late and enjoyed another great meal, almost didn’t make it to the airport, but everything worked out and I made my flight. Sat next to Miguel who got a little plane sick but was quite nice and had cornrowed hair. And beside him was Figue, who’s a minor league ball player. And what a nice guy he was. Helped me beat the system and bypass paying for my huge backpack. We tag teamed watching our luggage and he even bought food from the majorly overpriced food shack. Our conversation was real and it was sweet to talk about something deeper than surface and hear another perspective and life experience, for it’s those conversations that heal.

After he left I still had several hours and proceeded to meet 3 travelers from America, raft guides, who were headed to CR to party hard. Quite interesting fellows, the kind that don’t know a stranger but can make anyone feel welcome.

Finally our flight left and I got to San Jose around 2:30, but had to wait there till 9 for someone to come get me. I attempted to sleep outside at the gate but after a while a nice fellow told me I could wait inside where it was warmer and there were more people. So I found a spot in the corner and attempted to get comfortable and tried to sleep a few hours. I was partially successful, but the constant noise of the travelers and stamping of the exit taxes made it difficult. When I awoke there was a kind older man sitting next to me who proceeded to ask me questions and say quite a few profound things. He was very genuine and very encouraging. Maybe his writing club will fly me to Canada to speak…wouldn’t that be a treat!

Finally I went down to wait for my ride and there were quite a few young Americans. I figured they were ISA but I couldn’t be sure, so I just waited and fought to keep my eyes open. They were, indeed, all ISA and we drove to the office where the families we’d stay with came to receive us. Mama Tica came to get me and has proven to be quite fun. After unpacking and sleeping Kelly finally arrived and we talked and ate and went to the “Christmas fair”, filled with rides and small coasters, food everywhere, so much to see and take in. I am surprised at how much I understand, but I am constantly humbled by what I don’t. I hope I don’t spend all my time with Americans, but I don’t want to write off time with them and bypass life and fun by wistful thinking. But what to ticos do for fun? Party and dance? Where will I fit into all this? How will things unfold? I guess time will tell. I look forward to meeting people who share similar beliefs and values and experiencing life as they do, but part of me is scared that that life will be incredibly boring. I’m seeing pulls to things I never though I would because my bubble is being shattered and I’m seeing how much bigger it all is. But alas, in the eye of the storm there is such peace.

I don’t pretend to understand it all, and I am constantly asking for humility, but I will walk forward in expectancy. I pray this disconnect between life and faith is erased and all is united once again. With no idea what this semester will look like with all the time it looks like we’ll have and all the people I could meet and befriend, so many choices and options, I will walk forward. Part of me is still looking back, thinking maybe studying elsewhere would have been better, but it’s too late for that. So I will walk forward. Part of me wishes I had someone who knew me on this trip with me, but that did not happen. Yet. So I will walk forward. Part of me just wants to sit and read, being a recluse and bypassing adventures to sleep. But that’s too easy. So I will walk forward. Not alone. Never alone. “My soul clings to you, your right hand upholds me.” I will walk forward.

Smooth Stones

Smooth stones.

As I go, I realize how little I know and how much I have to grow. But I’m learning that I must trust myself humbly and press on in the pursuit of Truth and reality.

Regardless of where you are in the world, you have an opportunity. To walk forward staring down at the path before your feet, looking only intrinsically, feeding your thirst for meaning and experience. Or you can learn so humbly, so beautifully, from every single person that is around you. 

I’ve been living in fear. The Bible I read states that perfect love casts out all fear, so I must not be living in this love. I must not be walking in this truth, because fear dominates many parts of my life. In regards to theology, I fear being wrong so I resort to keeping my mouth shut. I fear being misunderstood so I use the lame excuse of “I don’t know” to keep the inquirers away. I fear the ones who attack, who mock, who rip my foundation to shreds. But not in the same way anymore, for I am beginning to understand what the words of a friend mean. He talked of smooth stones. Like the greats of the past had become. The waters of doubt and questions and prods and attacks raging over them had smoothed them into smooth stones. Stones that people naturally just want to reach out and touch. Stones smoothed by time and trial. Stones that cry out and declare Truth by their very being. So as this river rages over me I hope and pray that’s what’s taking place in me.

Love.

What does it mean to love. To be loved.

Maybe a better question is what is love?

Culture declares that it’s physical infatuation shallowly based on appearance which seems to only lead to a fallow love. Or can that even be called love.

The bible declares God is Love. But what’s that actually MEAN. How can something unseen define a word, a concept, a reality.

Is loving doing nice things, going broke by buying a ring? Whispering sweet nothings into their ear? Is being loved being lavished with gifts and someone willing to do anything so that your frown might lift into a smile?

That may be the definition that those who haven’t experienced more fall back on, but there’s gotta be a deeper definition that reaches the depth of the profundity of this little word.

Maybe love is trust. Trusting enough to let go of yourself. To wholly entrust yourself to another, yielding your right to be your own entity and willingly giving the other the power to build or destroy. Is it the laying down of your will to be intertwined with another so that neither would exist without the other?

Sacrifice? Throwing off the masks you hide behind? Allowing yourself to be fully seen, fully known, and fully loved? What does it mean to be loved. It has to be more than a feeling because feelings are often absent, it must be deeper than the physical body.

Holistic love. That’s the most pure and beautiful. Not separating body and soul, but uniting them under the banner of love. Willingly offering the sharp blade of a knife. One that can be used to guard or to cut.

What is Love.

Be Still.

Today I was surprised by a life-giving conversation with a dear dear friend from high school. This friend has encouraged me in more ways than he will ever know. He has been patient and gracious. He has spoken life where I saw none. I am deeply thankful I can call him friend and brother. During our conversation, he shared something he had written. It beautifully articulates my heart in a much better way than I could have done. So now I will share it, I hope he won't mind too much:

Be still. My mind is in turmoil. Be still. A storm rages within me. Be still.

Every storm will pass, leaving change behind, the only reminder that it even came through.  The lie and look of the land will be different from what it was before. That is the nature of storms: waters flood and erode, winds beat and carry away. It is the way of nature, the way of life. Is that such a bad thing? Perhaps this is what Berry means when he says, “Practice resurrection.”

Where is my Savior to calm the storm? Perhaps sleeping in the haul of a ship, waiting for the opportune time to rise and quell the chaos before it overtakes me. Maybe, the landscape needs changing, and the storm is a tool necessary for the job. I envy that He sleeps so soundly amidst such turmoil.  

Philosophy is my storm. Some say I call it that because my personality disposes me to be affected by it in this way: to feel uneasy with all of its ponderings, questions, demolishings, rebuildings, and uncertainties.  That in part may be true. But over simplifying—as philosophy has taught me—is never the way to get at the truth of matters. My reactions to philosophy, also in part, stems from my nature to be charitable. I take individuals thoughts and ideas seriously, because I feel most individuals have something to say that is worth listening to and in turn learning from.

I want such a storm to have a purpose. If the landscape of my mind is going to be forever changed, at least I hope it is going to be changed for the better. A boy, with growing pains, can bear such a nuisance because of the promise of growth. But, pain, with no hopes of appeasement or clear purpose, is near insufferable.

It is these innumerable voices that cause my pain: the voices worth listening to. They pick apart something I once thought to be, so simply true. Now I come to see its never-ending complexity. There is no blame on my parents or family for they are simple folk. There is beauty to be had in such a way of living of which I know and love. But to be cast in to such complexity is like jumping into near frozen water, it steals your breath and shocks your heart.  You’re saying there is: inclusivism, debates about the metaphysical possibility of the incarnation and trinity? The central ideas of Christianity, even there, there is nuisance and uncertainty. Ah, such simplicity that I knew before must only have been a lie.  

They tell me: Ignore it. Don’t listen. Come back to simplicity. But, I cant. What I am learning and have learnt won’t let me. I am scared: of what it is making me, of disloyalty to my family, my community, and to my God. How different will the land be once the storm ceases?

I see such dogmatism in both the simple and the complex. The simple, look down on the complex for tampering with tradition and generality, they say “You’re overthinking it.” The complex, take the simple to be ignorant and uneducated, “Think for a moment and you will see there are a great deal of complexities right under your nose.”

Ignorance is bliss, and knowledge a burden. Now that I have knowledge, I wish for ignorance.

But perhaps, there can be a consolidation between the complex and the simple. Maybe the lands can be changed by the storm, and from the destruction there will rise a greater beauty and fecundity that was ever possible before. Until the storm ceases, I will wait for the voice of my Savior to cry out amidst the chaos, “ Peace be still.”

Cliffnotes of the last 2 weeks

Back in Beijing with the world at our fingertips. Big dinners with the Liu family. Attempting to transcribe and translate an hour-long Spanish documentary. Going for teaching interviews just because I can. Getting lost…multiple times. Being at the mercy of every person on the street. Getting pointed in wrong directions over and over. Walking into the wrong school for an interview and getting offered a job there as well. How many students does it take to help me figure out where the heck I am? Answer: 4. And a smart phone and a headmaster who knows English.

Toying with the idea of teaching in China. Getting dropped off at the wrong building to go grocery shopping and an hour later finding the right store, shopping, and proceeding to walk over an hour and a half home due to the absence of any open taxis. Oh wait! There’s one! …but he does not know where I’m trying to get to. Even with a map. So out I go, walking. And walking.

Going to the open-air market. Whole pigs and chickens and ducks. And stacks of their dismembered parts. Rows and rows of vegetables. Fish and sea food tanks, eggs, fruits, food shops, anything you could want. Getting everything to make a Thanksgiving dinner.

Melisanda and I. 16 dishes. 15 hungry people (who didn’t make a dent in the food). A day of cooking. Some Spanish studying. Spanish, Hungarian, Chinese, German, French, American (just Justin and I) peoples represented. Tons of leftovers. Mafia. Which version? French? Russian? Spanish? Chinese? American? How bout all?

Meeting an incredibly sweet friend on the Subway…too bad we don’t speak the same language.

Traveling teachers of Buddhism. Learning about meditation, hearing and watching it take place. Fearlessness seems to be the end of the diamond way. Enjoying life to it’s fullest and spreading that by simply living (although if the goal is nirvana, ceasing to exist, and total absence of desires, I’m not sure how that works together)

Thanksgiving potluck. Such good food. Again, a multiethnic crowd. The north African made some of the best apple pie I’ve ever had. He had practiced the whole month prior J Watching the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade….from 2012. And seeing how irrational it is. Then band practice (so. So. Loud.) Then home. Researching churches.

I was planning to go to one branch of this church, but I met Zinnia on the subway (a beautiful woman from England) and ended up tagging along with her to a different branch of the same church. It was a pretty young church, but people were friendly and seemed genuine. A pretty western church. Lunch after. Some of the people were very cool. Real. Some seemed a bit odd, but it didn’t matter. It was just good. Then meeting Justin at a different subway stop in the “hipster” part of town (we were going to busk but didn’t get around to it really). Walking through the throngs of people. Meeting up with Cam, FINDING FROZEN YOGURT (which was so so good), bubble waffles, scorpion on a stick. So much going on there. Walking around the beautiful lake. Bars everywhere. Serenity for a moment. Back into the chaos. Incredible dumplings with 10 other people. Singapore, US, Madascar, China, Canada, Thailand, ect. Walking to the lake, music with the guitar, singing, lots of drinking (don’t worry, I still don’t like or desire to drink beer), merrymaking, breaking a bike by putting 3 people on it, lots of laughter, catching the last subway train.  A late night.

Finishing the translation, passing my placement test, going to bible study at a girl from church’s apartment (Romans of course).

Working in the studio. Transcribing and translating another much shorter documentary into Spanish. Dumplings in a friends apartment. Playing a show with Justin at the VA Bar. Racing to catch the last subway home. Meeting another new friend on the subway.

Learning how to put subtitles on the film. Mr. Pizza’s Love for Women (stuffed crust pepperoni). Hong Kong mango dessert. Darian pancake. Oddly textured frozen dessert. Making burgers and cookies with Lotus.

Many adventures and more to come. Whatever the location.