Accumulation:

I really have accomplished a lot of things in the past few weeks. To encourage myself through the last leg of this journey, and to show you that I'm not quite as boring as you may think, I've decided to list them for your perusal.

Well. I've written a total of about eighty pages in papers. Now, I know that's double-spaced, but really even forty pages single-spaced is practically the beginning of a book. None of it was particularly creative, nor particularly well written, but it was written nonetheless.

I participated in a luau Dorm event. Wore the lei and everything. Tasted my first pull-pork sandwich, decided there are better things to eat, like peanut-butter and Triskets and carrot sticks.

I went to an art show in Chattanooga. It was a rather impromptu excursion, but loads of fun. We stayed for a few hours and met up with two people I'm just getting to know but absolutely adore. Drank fresh-squeezed lemonade and talked about art, books, family, and capital punishment. And, of course, looked at lots of art. It makes me love Chattanooga even more.

I learned the basics of swing dancing. Have yet to put them to good use.

Went to a Nickel Creek concert; opened by the Ditty Bops, who were lots of fun to watch. Got the sticker. Nickel Creek was good, but not as good as last time. Comparing is such an evil game.

Overwithdrew from the ATM machine. Assumed that the bank would refuse my card if there wasn't money to withdraw, otherwise it becomes borrowing without knowledge, or, even worse, stealing with no intentions of retribution. In any case, I now owe a whopping sum to the bank. Lucky me. And no more ATM usage.

Went to a Derek Webb concert. Enjoyed it thoroughly, even if it was long.

Seven of nine finals: check.

Oh, and sat through one whole movie: The Great Raid. It was actually the preface to a history lecture and introduction of a guest speaker, namely the author of the book on which the movie was based. I enjoyed all quite a lot, and actually, I recommend the movie for its historical content--plus the fact that it was, for the most part, one of the least vile of war movies that I've seen.

Said a teary goodbye to a good friend who will be joining the ranks of the few, the proud, those who brave northern New York, the CFCer's. It's not the last time we'll see one another, just probably the last time we'll see each while neither of us are too stressed. It was hard and I don't like having to say goodbye to someone who's leaving. Usually it's me leaving. Not someone else.

Received my application and information packet from The Salt Institute for Documentary Studies. I will be filling out said application sometime this fall. And praying for acceptance. Hey, it would mean being only eight hours from home instead of 22; why are you complaining?

I think that's quite a lot of things done. And I'm feeling a little better already.

Addendum, as per Michael Baker:

Played Catch the Carrier with my wonderful friends after eating a delicious Easter dinner. After that we hung out under a bridge (which, by the way, Mike, I've actually already written about) for a few hours.

Planned a road trip up north with said friends (which, incidentally, Mike, I've also actually written about). The plan is for early-mid August. Aren't you excited?

Ate an impromptu dinner with same said friends and talked about love, and healing, and salvation, and testimonies, and freedom. All the good sort of stuff that fit into an evening (and, which is more, Mike, I've sort of already written about).

It is morning and we are quiet. They are quiet because they are still asleep; I am quiet because quiet feels good. And that kind of good only comes in the early morning around here.

Most of my friends are away for the weekend, on a retreat, and the same group will be away again next weekend, camping on a Florida beach. I was hoping to go to one of the two weekends, but I can't. So, instead, I'll grab pockets of quiet whenever I can find them.

"In repentance and rest you will be saved; in quietness and trust is your strength."
Isaiah 30.15

It is easy to keep going, to keep giving, to keep doing. It is in our nature to try and to strive. That's why we eat the apple---it feels better to try than to trust. My nature is to try and try and try and try and eventually get it. Even if the ultimate goal isn't reached, at least I'm a little bit closer than when I began.

But it is repentance, rest, quietness and trust that will save us, that will be our strength. Why the paradox? Why isn't sanctification like elementary math? Why doesn't 1 + 1 = 2? Why doesn't practice make perfect, only more practiced?

I don't know the answer, I won't profess to know it; I only know that in the early hours of the morning, in this town that sleeps past noon on Saturdays, I wake up and listen to the quiet. I wake up and hear nothing. And I am stronger because of it.

I've tried to start a post a few times today, but my head is a little fuzzy and my heart is a little worn. The end is in sight, only a week more, but the fact that there is only a one day break before summer classes begin leaves me feeling a little more worn than I do already.

I meant to close my eyes for only fifteen minutes, but startled myself awake two hours later. Two. Hours. A friend called me then and, still a little sleepy, I'm not sure what I said. He came a few minutes later bearing gifts in the form of two mix CDs filled with lots of good fun music of the cheering up sort and himself. He smiles a lot and I like that. He ate ice cream while I blabbered on about nothing I suppose, but he is a good friend and doesn't mind. Tonight I am going to a Nickel Creek concert in his stead. He is taking another good friend to a Rugby formal. They will be pretty, partly because they are, and mostly because they're my friends. I listened to the mix CD. I like it. He knew I would. He wrote on the top "Road Tripping" because we want to. Someday. We four talked about it last night. About Maine and Potsdam. And Virginia. And Pennsyvania. And, by default, all the places in between. Homes and houses, it doesn't matter. Kingdom and earth, it's all a journey and I'm grateful for the company.

And mix CD's.

This post is about nothing, I suppose, just a bleary eyed, still a little sleepy girl trying to get her bearings and still failing a little because she got knocked off course by the storm that is daily living. I weeble and I wobble, but I won't fall down. I promise. I just need to pull my mental equalibrium together and plant my feet a little firmer.

It's peaceful, he said. And I agreed. I wasn't sure what we were referring to, the evening, the weather, the friends, or the conversation. But I still agreed. It was peaceful.

I've said it a lot recently and I'll say it again: I'm finally coming into my own in this place down here. It was a rough transition. As much as I'd like to say that my heart is so enamored with the culture of heaven that transitioning between earthly cultures doesn't wreak havoc on my soul, I can't. Transitioning between cultures, families, friends, churches, and schools has wreaked havoc on my soul. It does it every time.

Somehow, though, I begin to think that's how it's intended to be. I think it's supposed to be hard, aimed to startle us into shocked attention. A reminder that this world is not my home and that I'm simply passing through. I know that's my life's lesson, it's been prophesied, rebuked, brought to my attention enough times that I ought to know that it's my life lesson. But it shocks me every time just the same.

"Keep the culture of heaven. Do not be inculturated into this world. Do not be an earthly immigrant." The reminders are everywhere.

But sometimes God lets us experience a little bit, a small glimpse, and a tiny piece of our spiritual kingdom. And maybe it looks like the evening, the weather, the friends and the conversation, but really it's His portion of peace and our portion of heaven here on earth.

It is peaceful, I agreed.

It's Sunday morning and I'm getting my heart right. I know that we're supposed to be working on that all week and not reserving the righting of the heart to Sunday morning, but I've been distracted this week. And maybe that's not a very good reason, and I know it's not, but it's the reason all the same.

At first I thought I was distracted by people. People in particular. But I found, last night, surrounded by said people, that it wasn't the people at all.

Then I thought, perhaps it's schoolwork that distracts me. But that hasn't changed. Always there are mounds of papers to be written and always there are deadlines to meet.

My next possible excuse for distraction was the reoccurring headache that drives me to my pillow and tears every night. But alas, I find that I have not always had a headache and I have always been easily distracted.

No. My excuses for distraction are depleted and I am left with only a wavering heart and unstable emotions. That is why, my friends, I am spending this morning getting my heart right.

It is almost midnight. Almost the 20th of April, and I would be remiss if I didn't say that I remembered what today was. But I would be even more remiss if I didn't say that there is this thing inside of me that says, with a settled finality, that anniversaries are like the tide, always there, scheduled and on time, but that sometimes they have different intensities.

This tide is finally flowing out with a little less intensity.

The past six years have shown me that creation knows to cry out with praises, from the tide to death, from the mountains to the valleys, and from sorrow to life of the deepest kind.

Thanks, Andrew, for helping to point me to life and for helping my testimony to point others to life and most of all for being part of my testimony. We miss you.

Conglomerate time, kids. Pull up your bean-bags and listen to a little story about my recent life:

Ruminating:

I'm a pretty religious Bible reader, no pun intended and no offense taken; I like to be holy and this seems to be one of the surest ways to attain holiness without too much work. I pull it out every morning over my peanut butter on wheat toast or every afternoon over my peanut butter and jelly on wheat bread or every evening over my peanut butter on fugi apples. I read it, I meditate on it, I quote it, and most of the time I really believe it too.

But this morning I read this verse:

...Like newborn babies, long for the pure milk of the word, so that by it you may grow in respect to salvation. I Peter 2.2

and I was suddenly so struck by the fact that we are admonished to long for the word, not to better ourselves, not to glean principles and gather facts, but so that we might grow in respect to salvation. That is, that the more we long for the word, the more we long for the Lord, and the more we long for the Lord, the bigger He becomes to us, and the bigger He becomes to us, the sheer fact that we've been offered salvation is magnanimous. We can't help but respect salvation when we're soaked in the word--life, principles, facts, proverbs, and parables all pale in comparison to the greatness of His goodness in receiving us into His salvation plan.

Tomorrow, over peanut butter and whatever, my Bible reading will be a little less religious and a little more grateful.

Rejuvinating:

Yesterday a few friends and I celebrated the last moments of Easter break by going to local bookstore and curling up in overstuffed chairs. My find was off of the dollar shelf and a fine find it was: A Growing Gardener by Abbie Zabar.

I remember reading an article written by Abbie Zabar in a magazine a year or so ago, but it couldn't have prepared me for the jubilance of this book! Filled with pencil and pen and ink illustrations, delightful calligraphy, and beautifully penned prose about the adventures of rooftop gardening in New York City, I was completely engulfed in the book for the remainder of the evening. It is like reading an artist's journal and inspiring to me in more ways than one.

The one dismal fact is that there is a reason for books like this being on the dollar shelf at local bookstores: it is a rare person who is interested in spending the original price of $22.50 on a book of this type. So much for writing a delightful book about gardening. . .

Relearning:

In about two weeks I'll be moving, again. If there is a lesson the Lord wants me to learn above all other lessons, I know it is this: Do not make this world your home.

As it is, I haven't had the chance to do so in the past five years. Which is fine, I need to learn that lesson a lot. This time I'm moving off campus and into a house with some friends of mine. They are godly young women who value the Lord and His work in their character above all else, and I so appreciate that. I wish you all could know them.

Realizing:

A friend and I had a brief sleepy conversation in the car the other day. (We were all exhausted; playing hard and talking hard does that to you.) I was, once again, expressing my doubts about my degrees of choice: how beautiful creativity looks on paper and how impractical creative degrees look on paper. How will I ever use this schooling in a way that glorifies God and is practical? He, who has held a creative degree for two years, resisted my negativity with a reply that I've been thinking about the past few days: simply because we chose to get a degree in one thing that doesn't mean that all the rest of the gifts in us will lie unused.

I forget that a lot. Thinking that the only way I'll ever be successful in life is by doing the single thing I came to school to learn. If that were the case the gospels probably would have never been written by men who were learned in mathematics and medicine. If my life's purpose was contained in the paper I'll get in a year declaring I've completed a program, I would forever be constrained by that aperture.

And He wants so much more for us.

I remember driving to work about five years ago and racing the train that sped alongside me. It was 5:30am and I was on the opening shift in the small coffee shop for the morning regulars. I used to race the train every day, always beating it, but still in a mental frenzy to make it to town before it did. I knew the end of the story, or at least expected with some degree of accuracy, but still the adrenalin rush of racing a train to the same place gave me the extra energy I needed to start my day.

I found, last night, that I operate my life in much the same way. Only it's my life, not my car, and it's my relationships, not a train.

We sat on a cement ledge, inches from the dark Tennessee River, and under a bridge which echoed even our thoughts. We sat, we four, and found that conversation came easily and without pretense. We're all the same, underneath the skin we boast and loathe. We're all going in the same direction, albeit at different speeds. Only this time, it isn't a race.

But sometimes I need to be reminded of that. I hurry along, as though to pass the finish line before everyone else, not for the win but for the fact that intersecting with anyone else slows my own race. I get distracted. I get detained. I get frustrated with lack of understanding and lack of excellence.

The other night a friend and I walked a half of a mile balancing on the train tracks behind our school. Twice a train passed us, and twice we stopped, jumped off the tracks, and watched it rush past us--getting there faster than we ever would. And I began to remember what I fully remembered last night:

The destination matters, but the journey matters more.

We sat on a cement ledge, we four, we friends. And our world slowed, if only for a few hours, while we took the race of life at the same speed, enjoying the journey together.

Today is an anniversary of sorts. The day we celebrate the cross, the gospel, the communion we share in the body and the blood. The day we stand and shout our worship because today, in such a big way, it is real to us. Today is the day we remember, with pain and with clarity, what sacrifice means.

Today is an anniversary of sorts. Six years ago this week my brother was cradled in a wooden box beginning his longest sleep. Six years ago our brother, our son, our friend, gave me the gift of the gospel. Six years ago I understood sacrifice and life and what it meant to give so that we could live. Six years ago today I leaned up against my dead brother's bed, and sobbed my confessional. Six years ago today we shared a makeshift communion. I dare say it was my first.

Holidays are all anniversaries of sorts. Days we celebrate. Days we feel paralyzed by mourning. Days we remember. And days we really remember. Easter is my favorite anniversary. It is the day we celebrate communion and resurrection and death and life and sacrifice.

What today is a reminder of remains to be seen. But my prayer is that it reminds all of us to commune with the giver of peace, the giver of the cross, the giver of the Son.

Though we're strangers, still I love you
I love you more than your mask
And you know you have to trust this to be true
And I know that's much to ask
But lay down your fears, come and join this feast
He has called us here, you and me

And may peace rain down from Heaven
Like little pieces of the sky
Little keepers of the promise
Falling on these souls
This drought has dried
In His Blood and in His Body
In the Bread and in this Wine
Peace to you
Peace of Christ to you

And though I love you, still we're strangers
Prisoners in these lonely hearts
And though our blindness separates us
Still His light shines in the dark

Rich Mullins-Peace

This from my inbox this morning, it's enough to make this girl cry:

This is a prayer for you:

Lord, so far away from me is my sweet curly-haired girl.
she is head-down busy for you, learning, studying, writing, making friends,
worshiping in a different church, laughing with people I don't know,
and crying by herself with Someone I do know.

Give her myriads of creative thoughts for her future.
In stretching her, don't allow her to be pulled so out of shape
that she loses her special self.
Thanks for giving her faith to trust You,
a sense of humor to deal with the blows of life,
a head on her shoulders,
feet that are pointed straight to heaven,
and a heart that is mostly unwavering, depending on her hormones.

Help her to remember how much I love her.
and how much we love her.
and also, how much everybody else loves her, too.
because you built her that way: motivated by love of family and friends.

I like that about her
(along with about a thousand and one other silly things.)

Amen.

I look around and hope for more than what I see. I see these things, clippings on a wall, a watercolor of a Nepali girl and a charcoal of a Chinese woman from Dali; Annie Dillard, three volumes, and Dietrich Bonhoeffer on my desk; a sketch of a girl whose face is as of yet unshaded and a black and white photo of my little brother taken when we were all still a family together. An apple green bedspread and a quilted throw. A wicker basket of clean laundry and a pile of to-be-returned library books. My camera. A soccer game is being played by some international students outside my window, their accents casting a colorful hue on my language. It is warm and cool at the same time. I am alone. And I miss my friends.

In the past few days a few of them have expressed the kind of things you don't write about yourself in a public place like this, so I won't tell you what they said. But those things said made the corners of my eyes tear and my heart do funny things. It always feels good to be appreciated. It feels good to finally feel at home here, in this place far away from home.

I know that to say that sounds like I've changed the directions of my heartstrings and it is tempting to excuse myself, to hastily say "But I haven't!" but the truth is that I prayed that eventually I would learn to be myself wherever I found myself. And the truth is that the Lord answers all my prayers.

So I look around myself and see the things that help make this home feel like home and see the things that make this home so different from my real home and remember that there are always in-between homes; places we plant our feet for a season and stand determined to grow, to flourish and to bear fruit. I look around myself and see that somewhere along the way fruit happened and I would have missed it if I hadn't determined to see it.

But that doesn't stop me from still looking around and hoping for more than what I see.

The world begins to slow and I along with it. For four days I will slow my world down a little bit if only so that the twirling act that will begin on Tuesday will be a little less overwhelming. I will try to finish my biggest two papers for this semester (and, dare I say, perhaps my college career?). I will go to church on this Sunday, my favorite holiday. I will play with babies in the afternoon and eat Easter dinner with some people I love and some people I don't know. I will sit on the soccer field with a blanket and a book.

I will not scratch the poison ivy on my inner arm, compliments of the excursion.

Tonight, though, I will eat caramel birthday cake for my beloved friend with some more beloved friends and we will be slow together.

We scaled cliffs and forged uncharted wilderness. We inspected insects and got slimy and wet. We discussed books and movies and faith and Frank Sinatra. There are a few bumps and bruises and sore muscles and scratches to prove we had an adventure, but, which is more, there was shared conversation and uproarious laughs and boosts up a wet rocks to prove we have relationship. That's the stuff I love.

On the way there I sat nestled between two jukeboxes masquerading as my friends, one is my roommate and other is someone else's roommate. One friend drove, I feel safe with him behind the wheel, and the final friend kept us entertained with Australian accents and other tall tales. I felt complete, happy. I felt relaxed, at peace. I felt, overall, a feeling I like and haven't felt very much since coming here--I felt like it's going to be okay.

I felt that there will always be hurdles, mountains, cliffs, and other barriers in front of my path, but with friends like these along who couldn't get to the summit and stretch out their arms and shout. I didn't shout, but I felt like it. For the first time in a long time I felt like shouting.

I know it is late, but I am celebrating the completion of five pages; single spaced.

Okay, I'm a liar. Four and a half. But you would lie too if that's all you had to show for four hours of straight Zora Neale and still only barely tapped the surface of her anomalies.

I digress.

I always say that whenever I am pitifully unhappy with myself and yet even more pitifully reticent to change. It is fifteen minutes after one am and I stopped being a night person when I was twenty; what am I doing with my life if not digressing?

I digress further.

Tonight saw me with two groups of friends--my new friends and, yes, my old friends. (Although, in reality, I have known all of them less than seven months and so in my lifetime of friend-making that would make them all new friends, but who's counting. I'm certainly not.) The first group was celebrating the birthday of a guy from my church. It's the little bit older crew, the almost graduated and the post graduated. I feel good with them. I feel like I'm my age and it's okay to be undecided, unlike all the rest of college sophmores and juniors who have life figured out thank you very much. Well, not really, but you know. The second half of my evening was spent with the old friends, a crowd with whom I very much feel comfortable. We know each other, we battle ideas and standards and relationships and sort out callings and giftings and stir one another on and spit out the bones and swallow the good stuff. Tonight we just watched a movie. Capote. Artistic and slow. I fell asleep, but only because I knew the rest of the story; In Cold Blood been required reading in every non-fiction class I've taken.

Now it's been proven that I've digressed and I'll go to bed.

I mean to do a lot of things. They are listed in various places and on various mediums throughout my life. I mean to appreciate people more, tell them, show them, give to them, love them, and otherwise verb them. I mean to appreciate life more, to slow down, to not be so concerned about grades, people, quotas, and have a real conversation with a few certain people before the end of the semester. I mean to get a job, fill up my gas tank, fill up my love tank, have coffee/tea with Laura, not eat solely peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, get to know Sara, finish my papers on Luigi Pirandello and Zora Neale Hurston and Ralph Ellison respectively, not get overwhelmed over the next two weeks, and keep up with my growing collection of cool words.

I meant, tonight, to get in the car with my very loyal friend and not cry. He said it was okay though and so I did. Three tears, one on the left side, and two on the right. Then I was done. He didn't even ask why, which I appreciated, since I couldn't verbalize why. He didn't try to cheer me up, which I also appreciated, since I knew that I would be done after three measly tears. He didn't even tell me all the things I could do to make it all better, because he knows I have a long list of 'mean-to's' and adding one more could topple the whole shebang.

I probably will remain scarce for the rest of the semester; just giving you all the heads up. I'm tired and while this page is a source of therapeutic relief, I have a long list of things to do on which I'm not making very satisfactory progress.

But one of the things on that list is to make progress. So. . . I will get around to it.

Tacked alongside those clippings on my wall, there is a growing collection of postcards with Van Gogh artwork and angels and stained glass and a photo of the place where someone thinks I ought to be married. These postcards are from all over the place, but the ones which have most recently joined the rank worthy of the wall for dreams are those postmarked Spain. I've opened my mailbox every day to yet another piece of news from Europe and it's had to suffice in the absence of other forms of communication.

But tonight she is home and tomorrow she arrives home, jet-lagged and travel sick, but home nonetheless. And so these cards will cease arriving in such a flurry.

Somehow, though, I'm okay with that. It's funny how perspective changes things a little bit.

Welcome home, my European vagabonds, you have been sorely missed.

We are a world of first names.

"Mark, this is Tara, Brittany's roommate."
"Who's Brittany?"
"Oh, maybe you don't know Brittany. Okay, well then this is just Tara."
"Tara, this is Mike."
"Morgan, this is Lore; you remember her?"
"Beca, this is Jackie, and this is Morgan."
"Girls, this is my friend Annie, like the orphan. Only she's not. An orphan, I mean. Just Annie."

No last names are ever exchanged, unless it is for the purpose of clarification:

"Kinworthy."
"Kinsworthy?"
"No. KIN-Worthy."
"Kinsworth?"
"Avnaim, like Nick and Tony, she's their sister."
"Oh, Baker! Mike Baker, yeah, I know who he is."
"Ferguson! What kind of crazy name is that?"
"Well, it's mine for starters." "
Oh."
"The mailbox says Philips Morris, like the cigarette guru, only it really is just our last names."

We are a world of first names. Which is why, incidentally, I've finally begun programming last names into my cell phone alongside first names. I want to know some of these people in ten years and don't want the reason for lost contact to be that we were too lazy to acquaint first names with last names.

I am sitting on the Tennessee River, or the walking bridge if you please. The sun warms my face and the river breeze cools it again. I think to myself, in moments like these, that I could live here and be happy. It is called the Art District and the river is grey-green, my favorite color.

All around me buildings in all their architectural glory rise up or lay flat, comfortable with their Art for Art's sake. People, couples, families, young, middle-aged, and elderly, walk on this, my section of the river. It makes for much to write about: Old men swapping stories and old women talking about the mileage they've gotten on their legs while they sip diet Dr. Pepper from red straws. Couples hold hands and look, at each other, at their hands, happy. Families run ahead or fall behind because it's the nature of family, to run ahead or fall behind with faith that no one could ever be too far away because there's blood that ties. Boys with leather art cases and scruffy beards who catch my eye (or maybe I catch theirs). Girls who walk their Scottish Terriers and Scottish Terriers who sniff my water bottle. Children who learn to ride their bikes and parents who try to remember what it feels like to not know everything.

I could live here, I think, near that small child who looked at me and smiled, near the brick streets and green-grey river, near art, the district and the way of life.

I could live here, I think, if there weren't so many other places to live.