October Update.

I just spent the past few minutes gazing out the window, watching the changed leaves fall and blow about, while listening to Händel. The furnace is rumbling and creaking and the house is warm. The sun is shining and the sky, blue. I am thankful for Fall, and the regeneration and refreshment it provides.

Well, the fact that I’m enjoying Fall may lead one to presume… I’m back in Washington State! It’s a shocker, believe me, I know. I came back at the beginning of September after spending a total of about 6 months in Louisiana [the 3 months previous to that I was on the Big Island of Hawai’i doing a Photography school]. Some background just to catch you up: The first four months I was cooking for a relief organization on the North Shore of New Orleans, living in an RV in the back of a church parking lot. At the end of July, I left the organization and moved into the city itself, to the Ninth Ward; a somewhat notorious part of the city, known for it’s destruction from Hurricane Katrina as well as for it’s poverty. Some friends from Washington have a house there and offered me their basement, and I snatched it up! It was a great time being with them in their awesome home, but lack of transportation and lack of means for attaining transportation caused a bit of a dent in my chrome wheels of immaculate ability in planning-the-future. I initially intended on remaining in New Orleans until Spring 2009 but, in a rather rapid way, God placed the option of leaving sooner before me – not that I was intending on pursuing that option. But due to finances, some dreams, and lots of praying and some good bouts of affirmation, I realized I needed to move back to be with my family, to get myself out of my own financial poverty, and to work through some things. As a friend of mine put it, it was ‘time to unpack the past two years.’

GUSTAV
Before I came back however, I found myself in the direct path of The Storm of The Century [as they were calling it], also known as Hurricane Gustav. The family I lived with, along with myself and about 70 others from their church, were invited to a church in Birmingham Alabama, to take refuge from the storm. So, the day before Gustav made landfall, under mandatory evacuation of the city and with contra flow, we packed up both cars, two dogs, three adults and the baby, and caravanned the 11 hours to Birmingham – normally a 5 hour drive – within the mass exodus of thousands of evacuees. There we were greeted by the famed Southern Hospitality. Birmingham was great – clean, hospitable, a high standard of living, and an immaculate fully-stocked Wal-Mart..?! We’d landed on Mars. We also promptly decided Louisiana was the armpit of America.

After about 5 days of sleeping on the floor of a gymnasium and after being served so well by Mountain Brook Church, ‘my family’ and I left at about 4am, to get back to New Orleans the day the city reopened. Yet again, the five hour drive turned into 13 – but that would be without mentioning The-Adventures-of-a-short-stop-in-Mobile-that-turned-into: a bolt in the tire, a shattered back window, a fussy baby, melted food, a free steak meal, an offer to use a man’s shower, nearly being hit by an old man on his way to a buffet, an incredible amount of ChaCha questions, and a generous $60 from a lady in an Escalade.
It was a long day.

The city had hardly suffered from Gustav [south of New Orleans however, is another story] and our home sustained little damage. The power was on and we hadn’t been looted! Hooray! But we had no food. And with Hurricane Ike on the way, the grocery stores weren’t particularly thrusting themselves into ‘restock’ mode – nor into ‘open’ mode either as a matter of fact... So obtaining food was an adventure for anyone whom had already returned home from evacuating Gustav. We were fed however, like the birds of the sky, so no worries.

While in Birmingham however, I did make the call to the Daddy-o to purchase
the one-way ticket to Washington. Talk about a spoonful o’ motivation.

WHAT’S THE UP NOW?
Currently I’m not going to school, am living at home with the parents, and working part-time at a coffee shop [that line gets me a lot of dates]. I have a few photography deals planned and am enjoying some stability. I’m totally digging my family and am love-love-loving fall! I’m also back near a computer that can be called ‘my own’, with Adobe programs too, so photography/art is much more accessible, which I’ve found the means in which to create is key for my internal organs to function properly. But that also means there’s some new clutter up on the flickr site, so check it out.

So, that’s me. How’re you?

[PHOTOS] .:. [PHOTOS] .:. [PHOTOS]

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‘My God, I give thanks to you, my source of sweet delight, and my glory and my confidence. I thank you for your gifts. Keep them for me, for in this way you will keep me. The talents you have given will increase and be perfected, and I will be with you since it was your gift to me that I exist.’
-St. Augustine, Confessions

random invasion

President George W's helicopter flying down the street.... kinda.

Zack and Alysha working at Rock of Ages Church.

Alysha with some of the kids around Rock of Ages.

Evie being so cool. She's nearly one!

The summer 'young' staff for Crisis Response. Trailer folk, ya know? :)

Evie [housemates daughter] is pretty hilarious.

There are awesome Live Oaks and apparently ones that spring up through the asphalt... with sweet swings to the left.

Katie and I!

We've got a pretty sweet four-level house.

It rains a lot. perhaps tina fey will bring more!

Good Vs Better [x-ed]

How do I avoid the Good in light of the Better?

When I come upon a fork in the road, and am greeted to my left with Good and to my right with Better, how do I find myself avoiding choosing my right over my left?

I feel as though this calendar year has been one of Good*.

Yet no matter how grateful I am that Good is not Bad, I have found myself in a cerebral convolution and amongst the tortured souls of those whom have chosen Good over Better. Those who find themselves being gnawed away by Potential, by the what could have been, by the foreboding knowledge that there once was a choice that could have taken them in a direction of things much more profound then where they find themselves now. For they have found themselves among the Good when they knew they were destined for the Better, and they know the only one to blame for such a unsatisfactory transition is themselves.

But once the deed is done, once I've already chosen the Good, how do I avoid the torture of the impervious agony in its form of guilt and discontentment? (And how do I welcome humility and meekness in it's place?)**

For I find myself going left, and with each pace away from the increasingly distant fork in the road where Better once stood, I feel the weight of my chest increase. It takes more energy for my heart to beat as strong as it once did, and yet the energy isn't available for it is now being distributed in a sparring manner to all the faculties that now desire it, to figure out how I allowed myself to give up Better to begin with.

'You've made your bed, now lie in it.'

I'll tell you where I am; I'm staring at my bed.

Discontent and heartbroken at what I've made; not because it isn't good, but because I know I could have had Better.

'People will always let you down.'

I suppose it was my own turn.

There is this overwhelming blanket atop me that screams worst intentions. That chokes with every Better I compromise.

I do not know how to let this go.

'From where I'm sitting these shoes ain't fitting and I'm going nowhere, killing time.' – Something Corporate

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* I can't help but correlate Good with complacency, and cannot help but feel as though I've cheated myself by allowing Good.

** King David made many mistakes, and the consequences were brutal, actions whose re-actions reached the point of Death. I'm not alone in this, I know that – but no matter how humble I wish to perceive myself as, this human faulted ability to fail and be completely wrong is a slap in the face and a painful realization. No matter how much I know I am not alone in my faults, I also know that that doesn't alter the overwhelming feelings of being so, nor does it lift the unwavering guilt and depression of failure. Yet I am told at this point is where I understand that I am nothing, and within that epiphany I realize the paradox; that this nothing is worth His Everything.

/////

I’ll move from my 1978 RV known as ‘The Swinger’, in all of its glory within suburbia, into the city of New Orleans in just under two weeks.

My season with Crisis Response is done and it is time for me to move out and move on.

I’ll be renting a room out of a friend’s house in the city, and will be pursuing ‘normal’ life for a little while, appreciating the subtle luxury’s I give up seemingly often enough (a bathroom within 30 seconds distance, television, a real house, pets, income, etc.).

Prayers for a job, transportation and the transition in itself would be incredibly appreciated.

I’m looking forward for some time to relax and recoup a little after a long first half of 2008.

Love you all. Like – a lot. :)

K

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‘Some of the best letters come from prison.’ – Rob Bell

‘The Master said, Be of unwavering good faith.’ – Ancient Chinese. Analects.

‘Hateful to me as are the gates of Hades is that man who says one thing, and hides another in his heart.’

– Greek. Homer, Iliad.

‘The foundation of justice is good faith.‘ – Roman. Cicero, De Officiis.

‘A sacrifice is obliterated by a lie and the merit of alms by an act of fraud.’ Hindu. Janet, i. 6

‘Courage has got to be harder, heart the stouter, spirit the sterner, as our strength weakens. Here lies our lord, cut to pieces, out best man in the dust. If anyone thinks of leaving this battle, he can howl forever.’ - Anglo Saxon. Maldon.

‘Natural affection is a thing right and according to Nature.’ – Greek.

‘I ought not to be unfeeling like a statue but should fulfill both my natural and artificial relations, as a worshiper, a son, a brother, a father, and a citizen.’ – Greek.

‘Did not Socrates love his own children, though he did so as a free man and as one not forgetting that the gods have the first claim on our friendship?’ – Greek. Epictetus.

‘Is it only the sons of Atreus who love their wives? For every good man, who is right-minded, loves and cherishes his own.’ – Greek. Homer, Iliad.

‘The union and fellowship of men will be best preserved if each receives from us the more kindness in proportion as he is more closely connected with us.’ - Roman. Cicero, De Officiis.

chewy.

...Or, quite to the contrary, might this faith, which apparently is still able to stir the masses, be an option, a way out, a promise; might it be able to solve the hopelessly tangled problems of our society, which no longer knows which norms to obey, in which rules to place its faith - in short, what might save it from itself?

These questions arouse an anxious curiosity. This curiosity is invaluable. Anything that prompts people to a deeper understanding of the Other is excellent. But there is also the danger that it will stray in the direction of false answers.
[pg. xlvii]





There is not reason to think that disillusionment, disappointment and tension can be avoided. There is no reason to think that people here, any more than elsewhere, will not be gripped by the temptation of what might be called - in the broadest, almost romantic sense - bourgeoisism, that satisfied mentality which delights in having, a mentality disastrous in its consequences, particularly in the blindness it causes. One can forecast as well a destructive turning to nihilism on the part of the dissatisfied.
[pg. li]




excerpts from Muhammad by Maxime Rodinson

TRIAL

test –noun
1. the means by which the presence, quality, or genuineness of anything is determined; a means of trial.
2. the trial of the quality of something: to put to the test.
3. a particular process or method for trying or assessing.
4. a set of questions, problems, or the like, used as a means of evaluating the abilities, aptitudes, skills, or performance of an individual or group; examination.

+++

At one point recently, I came to a conclusion that trails were a good thing… that I’d come to accept and appreciate them for their attributes of pressing me closer to God. That they were nearly almost enjoyable because I knew that when they came, in their abundantly nefarious ways, that it meant God Time! And I love that. So I was starting to love trails for what good they had in store with all their bad. A masochistic relationship of sorts I suppose.

But I realized tonight, that the image I had conjured in my mind of trails, was this ‘trial utopia’ where they would always come about in the same way, always stretch and push similarly, and be hard, yet mildly beneficial. That they’d all look the same. And because of that, you’d get used to them. Ahh yes, Trial, I remember you. You and I have business to do again, eh? Well alright then, I am ready. How has your wife been since we last saw each other?

Oh naïveté! Alas, we’ve met!

I look at a young teenager… they’ve reached an end, an edge to something more, and the trial bears it’s claws. They’re torn about it, and come for advice, and I look at them somewhat mockingly and tell them to ‘Get over it. When you’re older, you’ll realize that this isn’t even a big deal.’
Lame. That is part of getting older… that’s a trail, and the state of their maturity will match the difficulty of their trial, and as we grow and become more mature, the trials will become harder.

{No test or temptation that comes your way is beyond the course
of what others have had to face. All you need to remember is that God
will never let you down; he'll never let you be pushed past your limit;
he'll always be there to help you come through it.}
1 Corinthians 10:13

It’s like a video game – if you’re new to a game and you’re immediately placed in the hardest level in the final battle with the most powerful boss, you’ll lose. I don’t care if you’re a cat with 9 lives, you’ll lose them all! You have to go through the levels, and the stronger handle you get on the game, the harder it becomes. The further you advance, the more you become involved, the more the plot unfolds and thickens and the more skills you pick up on the way, the more directly you’re challenged.



To think that it will always be easy, that the more mature we become the fewer will trials spurn us, that as we engage into newer depths, we will be left alone, is idealist. Idealism is not per say wrong, but realism may prove more merit in dealing with what we are. That trails come and go, but as they wax and wane with time they also wax and wane in difficulty.

I cannot look at Trial the next time he comes about and nod to him, conduct a business transaction, feel some pain, and smile as we bid each other well until next time.

It is trial.
It is test.
It is fire to purify.
It is meant to hurt.
It is meant to grow you.
It is meant to sometimes sweep you off your feet, to blindside you and to knock your breath away.
To feel like drowning.
To feel like God is the farthest thing away.
To be completely at unrest, disoriented and anguished.
To be made ill by it.

Not common. Not the same ol’. Not utopia. Not always recognizable.

It is designed with intentions to knock you off the track hard enough to kill what it can.
And the stronger you are, the worse it may be.


+++

Trial, this game you play, it was not made for me. But Trial, I will take up arms, and I will man my ship upon this sea. For my God will not leave me be, and if perchance you kill, I will still be free. Trial, you and I, I cannot claim to foresee, but Trial, if you must come, know I will endure it for His glory.

+++

Be well,
K

der·vish

I’ve been listening to a lot of Celtic/Irish folk radio [www.liveIreland.com] and a band came on titled ‘Dervish’. So I looked it up and learned something new.

der·vish
1. A member of any of various Muslim ascetic orders, some of which perform whirling dances and vigorous chanting as acts of ecstatic devotion.
2. One that possesses abundant, often frenzied energy: "[She] is a dervish of unfocused energy, an accident about to happen" (Jane Gross).

Contemplation ::.

con·tem·pla·tion –noun

full or deep consideration; reflection

These are things I've been contemplating for the past few weeks. Thought I'd share.

+++

Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.
Matthew 5.4


Matthew, in recording Christ's teaching, chose the strongest Greek term in all his vocabulary when he wrote mourn. It is a heavy word - a passionate lament for one who was loved with profound devotion. It conveys the sorrow of a broken heart, the ache of soul, the anguished mind.
Charles Swindoll, Improving Your Serve, pg. 103


///


First and foremost in the life of an authentic servant is a deep, abiding dependency on the living Lord. On the basis of that attitude, the kingdom of heaven is promised.
Charles Swindoll, Improving Your Serve, pg. 103


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Boundaries don't keep others out, they fence you in.
Grey's Anatomy

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Fear has in interest to subdue and domesticate.
idea derived from Maxime Rodinson

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Wounds from a sincere friend
are better than many kisses from
an enemy.
Proverbs 27.6

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[Many practices and ideas were the same. An entity of this type, bringing together individuals and peoples who have in common a substantial bundle of cultural traits, can be called a civilization. This civilization deserves the name of Muslim by virtue of the fact that the basic cement of its unity, the ideology that imbued these individuals and peoples, was Islam.

But it must be understood that all the common elements of this culture did not simply devolve, as the naive religious idealists would have us believe, from the dogmas of the Muslim religion professed by the majority of the people inhabiting this zone. Of course the Muslim ideologists, with the support of the political establishment, made enormous efforts to truly 'Islamize' these peoples and their culture. They sought to reach and to impregnate every facet of life with the values of their religion, down to the most trivial aspects of everyday conduct.]

But they were not much more successful in this than the Christian ideologists of the Middle Ages, who, in a comparable effort, tried to make all Christian societies practice Christ's message of love and goodness.
Maxime Rodinson, Muhammad, pg. xxxv